Did Obama Lie? " both sides had to make tough decisions and give ground"

[grahamhgreen]

"Like any worthwhile compromise, both sides had to make tough decisions and give ground on issues that were important to them. And I certainly did that.

Some of the cuts we agreed to will be painful. Programs people rely on will be cut back. Needed infrastructure projects will be delayed. And I would not have made these cuts in better circumstances." (Read more: http://ti.me/epO0IE)"


What, exactly, did the Repubs have to give up?

I mean, everything they had before, they still have.

The only things they had to give up were things that they did not have - like cutting funding to Planned Parenthood.

That's not "giving ground". Giving up things you don't have is not giving ground!

That's like saying we gave ground because we did not get Medicare for All in this budget - that's impossible because we never had it in the fist place!

It's an obfuscation, an equivocation, a tergiversation.

Indeed, one might even call it a lie.

[phleshdef]

1. Um, we didn't ask for "Medicare for All" in this budget. They tacked 50 riders onto this thing.

They wanted to defund the EPA, Planned Parenthood and all of Title 10 and shit load of other things. They had to give in and allow those thing to keep current funding level. And there were further cuts in defense they had to agree to that were certainly not something they were pushing for.

Your point doesn't work when you are comparing them not getting things they tried to jam in the bill versus things that Democrats weren't trying to get at all.

[grahamhgreen]

2. That's the point exactly

They are giving up nothing - vaporware. Things that they wanted, but things that they did not already have.

Therefore, they gave up NOTHING.

We, OTOH, had to give up real programs, things that we already had!

Therefore, we gave up real things, they gave up nothing.

Therefore, the statement "both sides had to... give ground", is an equivocation of two things that are not equivalent.

[dmallind]

3. So you are consistent - in the health care bill you think Dems gave up nothing?

After all everything in HCR is new thaqt we didn't have before - you must, to be consistent, be doing cartwheels over that complete victory at no cost to Dems!

[goodnews]

5. See, this is where the conversation goes astray. You have, inadvertently

or otherwise, changed the subject. The question remains: What did the Pukes give up? And that is the only question.

[BeFree]

8. ""What did the Pukes give up? ""

What is it that the pukes can give up? Serious non-flame question.

The only thing that comes to my mind is they could quit stopping us from progress.

[goodnews]

11. Time to celebrate a loss, which is what is happening.

This is what Krugman suggested the other day. Obama is either a fool or a liar. All show and no substance on this issue. This is the way to hold his feet to the fire, just keep asking the question and demand an answer.

[BeFree]

12. I agree

But what is it that we can rightfully demand from the pukes?
Just to leave us alone?
I guess the question is: what power do they have that we want?

[goodnews]

15. The pukes are all about destroying things. As the old saying goes

any jackass can kick down a barn (start and war, sow discord etc.), but it takes a carpenter to build one. The most frustrating thing in fighting them is keeping on message as the OP is trying to do here. The people must see who they are and what they represent. THAT IMO is the biggest problem, because of the corporate controlled media. In "the hinder-lands" where people live closer to the earth and interact in a substantive way on a daily basis the MSM is less effective as we've seen in Egypt and elsewhere. Alternative media such as Wikileaks, which actually triggered the Tunisian revolt, have more impact in areas where the TV does not hypnotize the population. FOX news is actually a smart thing for the fascists to keep going, it makes other news media look moderate in comparison, when in reality they are worse than FOX news because they keep the myth about free press alive while promoting a pro-corporate agenda. Americans are so inundated with corporatism they don't even know any different. As JFK once said the biggest threat to democracy is not the lie but the myth that over time becomes conventional wisdom.

What is happening in Wisconsin is really giving the bastards something to think about, but it really was a big overreach by the fascists.

ON EDIT: What the pukes have is economic power, from which all else flows. Socialism--the people's control over the means of production--is what is needed and that is one reason why it has been given such a bad rap by the capitalist, they know it is the one thing that spells their doom.

[BeFree]

17. Yep

Our message should be:?

We are begging the republicans to stop destroying everything.

I like it. It would resonate with people.

[goodnews]

23. I'd like to see the OP question simply restated, or chanted. Asking

a question is easier and more effective in most cases.
"Shared sacrifice??? What have the banksters/repukes/Koch's sacrificed!!?? Please, oh please, tell me!!

Whenever, where ever they show their faces ask that question louder and louder until you drown them out and they walk away.

During the Wisconsin protests FOX news was drowned out by a couple of young girls who stood behind the reporter and repeatedly yelled FOX LIES! rapidly and loudly above the din of the protest. It was funny as hell and prevented the reporter/whore from spewing his shit! :rofl:

[TheBigotBasher]

26. Funding for health care reform, pell grants

planned parenthood, $100 billion in cuts. To start with.

The Tea Party Terrorists are furious with this "deal".

[goodnews]

27. The funding for health care? ....

Is this not taxpayers money? They give nothing here unless I am mistaken. Obamacare is such a tangled mass of gibberish that it would take a PHD in legaleze to translate it, and then their would be two fucking interpretations for every sentence. The Insurance Industry liked it and that's all one need know. But that is beside the point anyway. Nothing was given or shared by the moneycrats. There was no shared sacrifice, only, maybe, less stolen than they wanted.

Planned Parenthood? In what way do corporations pay for this? Planned Parenthood, in so far as it is paid for from public funds, merely reduces the amount of money they have a chance to steal from the public coffers, same for Social Security. When the well funded and armed barbarians are at the gates, it is not enough simply to keep them from breaching the walls, that is not victory, it is only a stalemate, at best, but really a loss to the public due to the waste of resources fighting the bastards. What the repukes are after is to keep the people in a perpetual state of economic despair, eviscerate the implementation of Roe v. Wade if they cannot repeal it. Keeping poor women "barefoot and pregnant" is an important cornerstone of this process. Of course the rich pigs can fly to other countries, or pay their doc a tip to perform this service. The rich always can buy their way out of everything. They are never held accountable for anything and never had been.

Now the tea party anger is another matter. The question is, who will they vote for in the end if Repukes don't do their bidding? They will vote for the Repukes, who will be depicted as moderate compared to them, but in reality they are both after the same thing--the repuke politicians have to keep a more moderate public face. The teapartiers are the voice of fascism without the frills same as the John Birchers, Goldwater and other Paleoconservative types of the past. Libertarians also are in the tea party camp. If the Libertarians ever got into power, they would immediately fail at stopping the wars (or not live long), but launch a frontal attack on social services and other interests of the Public. I found it more than ironic that Rand Paul and, what many consider a moderate democrat, Dick Durbin were on opposite sides of the war in Libya issue: Durbin was pro-war and Paul against it. Durbin used rhetoric for waging the war that was hauntingly similar to what Bush did for Afghanistan and Iraq. But any discussion with Libertarians must include the demand to stop the wars BEFORE anything else is done. What he Libertarians fail to understand, if they even want to, is that Capitalism is dependent on war (expansionism) for its very existence. That fatal flaw of the Libertarians "free market" heaven, something that never was or could be, puts them in the category of Utopian idiots IMO. The Libertarians would never accomplish anything except the destruction of the Economy, the Environment and the whole shaky social fabric that holds society together.

But in the end, the repukes have given nothing here

[grahamhgreen]

21. To me the health care bill was a loss. Big insurance will

simply take their mandated trillions and use it to defeat the weak reforms in the bill.

You can already see it happening, as they tried to eliminate some of the funding for the community health centers in the budget negotiations.

[phleshdef]

6. First off, we didn't give up any programs. Secondly, funding doesn't work the way you think it does.

All those programs that were funded at lower levels as a result of the new budget still exist and are still receiving funding. LIHEAP for example, still completely exists and will still be used to subsidize energy costs.

But funding for these things is done on an annual (fiscal year) basis. The funding level for that year starts off at ZERO and then Congress can approve a new funding level for it. What happened was, ultimately, they are putting less money into it this year than they were last year. Your criticism comes from a premise that funding would stay the same if Congress doesn't decide to cut it and thats not how it works. The reality is, funding is nonexistent until Congress agrees to a certain dollar amount to give it. This dynamic is why legislatively, its a lot easier to cut something than it is to increase it (and to me its also a flaw in the process that Congress uses to handle the budget).

[grahamhgreen]

20. It's Obama who said "Programs people rely on will be cut back."

The point I'm trying to make is that Dems had to give up actual things of real value, but the only thing Repubs gave up were things that did not even exist.

[goodnews]

22. You changed the subject! I don't mean to be testy, but

here again we have an example of how the subject is changed. The question is: WHAT HAVE THE REPUKES GIVEN UP? Not what the dems have maintained. You seem to be changing the subject to fit some knowledge you presently have about funding.
Intentionally or otherwise.

[phleshdef]

28. No its not changing the subject. Your whole premise is just ridiculous.

If a lawmaker wants something or doesn't want something, regardless of whether its a cut or additional funding or a tax increase or a tax decrease or what have you, whenever those lawmakers have to either accept something they didn't want or let something go that they did want, then they have "given something up". This whole logic where you are trying to redefine that as only "not getting a cut when you didn't want it" has no basis in reality.

[goodnews]

29. They have given nothing up. They simply did not get what they

wanted nothing was, and this is the key word, given by them. You my friend are being ridiculous for claiming otherwise. You are trying to twist the meaning of giving to fit your not so well thought out claim.

[goodnews]

4. Your question will never be asked in a serious way

by the MSM chuckleheads, and Obama knows he can slip this past the majority of Americans whose attention span is that of a gnat. Your question needs to be asked about ALL of the issues. Like what are we really doing in the Mid-East and elswhere, etc. Then keep asking the same question continuously. Never let the bastards frame the argument on false premises.

K&R.

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[xchrom]

9. The answers will be somewhere in obama's presidential library

And we won't know til then.

[WinkyDink]

14. Nope. In the archives, and "we" won't know for 75 years.

Who the Masters really are.

[gratuitous]

10. I absolutely agree

"Like any worthwhile compromise . . ." Unfortunately, we jump the rails at that point, and no matter how much lipstick you put on this gargoyle of a "compromise," the word "worthwhile" doesn't really apply. When the other side's starting point in negotiations is X, and they wind up with X + a heckuva lot more, you haven't really negotiated a compromise so much as a capitulation. But good news: This deal is only temporary, and in a few weeks, surely the Republicans (having already gotten so much) will have a sudden attack of the reasonables and begin operating in good faith for the good of the na--

:rofl: :puke:

Nope, my keyboard couldn't quite type that out.

[WinkyDink]

13. "Programs people rely on will be cut back." Which Party is in the WH, again?

[Zorra]

16. "We wanted to have to make these tough decisions, and that's why we

didn't pass a budget when Democrats were an overwhelming majority in Congress.

Otherwise, we would have had no excuse for taking your hard earned tax money to use for the benefit of wealthy individuals and corporations around the globe."

(Translated from the original Corporatish text)

[grahamhgreen]

18. Bingo.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

19. CYA in the form of "I didn't screw you as much as they would have".

[Ramulux]

24. Exactly

There were no democratic demands. This was not a negotiation, this was extortion that democrats willingly went along with.

[mmonk]

25. Yes, absolutely. Like "shared sacrifice" and other clearly false

descriptions.

[lumberjack_jeff]

30. How many times, since the 2008 election, has Obama mentioned lifting the FICA cap?

He's not compromising with Republicans, he's proving that his campaign was a head fake.