Today's Wall Street Journal editorial page print edition wonders whether Cruz is secretly working for Obama and the Democrats by wrecking the Republicans chances of getting elected. Citing the poll numbers for Republican vs Democrat approval the Republican chances are worse since there aren't enough Tea Party Republicans to get them elected.

"I agree...let's go back to the Clinton era style budgets. But guess what??? That means raising taxes back to those levels! OMG...the horror!!! But it should hopefully help us get back to a more balanced budget."
Clinton's budget wasn't more impressive then this one, given the massive increase in entitlement spending since then (which isn't discretionary so not directly controlled by congress) Clinton would be running massive deficits right now even if we went back to his taxes and non-entitlement spending, which is what the democrats are currently advocating for.

List of patriots who deserve to stay in office:

Coburn, Tom - (R – OK)
Cornyn, John - (R – TX)
Crapo, Mike - (R – ID)
Cruz, Ted - (R – TX)
Enzi, Michael B. - (R – WY)
Grassley, Chuck - (R – IA)
Heller, Dean - (R – NV)
Johnson, Ron - (R – WI)
Lee, Mike - (R – UT)
Paul, Rand - (R – KY)
Risch, James E. - (R – ID)
Roberts, Pat - (R – KS)
Rubio, Marco - (R – FL)
Scott, Tim - (R – SC)
Sessions, Jeff - (R – AL)
Shelby, Richard C. - (R – AL)
Toomey, Patrick J. - (R – PA)
Vitter, David - (R – LA)

List of anti-American cowards who should be voted out of office immediately:

<everyone in Congress not listed above>

Gunfighter, so you'd have caused financial chaos by defaulting on our debt.

Nice to know you're willing to cut off your nose to spite your face.

With that little dialogue, you're literally not worth discussing anything of substance with.

Krellin, I'm willing to bet that you were the type to be gung-ho for Iraq at the time, and probably gung ho for Afghanistan until now.

You go on about intellectual integrity, but you have absolutely none yourself.

So you'd raise taxes back to the Clinton levels? Yes or no?

Excuse me...I'm still waiting to hear all the high and glorious praise from Obama supporters...why are you not cheering about $1 Trillion dollars debt increase over three months? Come on...let's yuck it up and celebrate!!!!

@Jack - I've been around here a long time jack...so let''s not pretend you suddenyl have no idea who I am...I've been calling for an end to endless war for a period of time now, moron. I see that you have choosen the route of deflecting from teh topic, instead of having the integrity to address me per the requested line of discusion. Basically, just your tacit admission that I am correct in my assessment of you...that you are a fraud, that your claim to agree about wanting to return to Clinton days ONYL means, to you, higher taxes, but wouldn't include a balanced budget with reduced spending. Thanks for showing your colors Jack - though none are truyl surprised.

Also, on the topic of food stamps (SNAP), yes, the program costs have gone up over the last few years (hello, we've had a nasty recession and a shitty recovery if you're not part of the upper classes).

But the total program costs last year were 78 billion dollars. (up from ~40 billion in 2008... again you would expect the cost to rise due to recession).

In contrast, the Bush tax cuts have cost the government 2 trillion dollars JUST during Bush's two terms. I don't have figures for the time period of Obama's term in office, but you can guesstimate its probably less due to the economic contraction.

So basically, people who want to fuck the poor and blame the deficits on them are either ignorant, or downright evil.

We had a surplus prior to the tax cuts. Republicans chose to stop that. Republicans de-regulated the financial industry, leading cause of the banking recession.

And now the Republicans want to dice the social safety net. Fuck that. FUUUCK that.

Poor Krellin, I'm aware that your worldview is fragile, but your shutdown was crushed, your fellow juveniles in the Tea Party spanked, and wow... we might actually solve the problem.

Remember when you tried to blame the shutdown on the Senate refusing to negotiate, and I pointed out they tried to go to budget conference 18 times(and showing either your ignorance, or your dishonesty), and you ran away like a whipped dog?

That was fun. I'm looking forward to whipping you again.

@ Jack_Klein

"Gunfighter, so you'd have caused financial chaos by defaulting on our debt."

Financial chaos is a small price to pay for a defunded federal government. We just missed an excellent opportunity to chop up the government's credit cards. This amount of spending is still more insane than a default. Besides, what would our lenders do? Repo something?

Even the worst-case default scenarios are still much more tolerable than continued spending, and the brave patriots that voted against this deal realize this.

Let's get rid of the Federal Reserve and go back to the gold standard while we're at it. Seriously guys, some red flags should have gone up when they had President Kennedy assassinated.

Yes Jack 6 years of shitty jobless Obama re every....and still you worship him. Tells us something about you, doesn't it. You are the irrational devotee to the cause who doesn't care.who suffers.as.long as you are winning. Moron in other.words.

Man, I think I understand how you think you ever win an argument.

You define the other person as X, regardless of what they are. You argue against X, instead of reality.

That is what you would call a straw man.

Newsflash. You and your compatriots lost. I know it burns, but the country is better off with the crazy fuckers marginalized. Including you and Gunfighter.

Jack - no straw man, you are just an obvious political sheep. You defend Obama and the Democrats with undyign loyalty...but through this presidency, we have seen a doubling of the national debt, increased jobless rates, increased food stamps...no indicator of success is up....but you will defend him to the end.

You are a fool, Jack. Pathetic.

The koolaid is strong with this one.

"In contrast, the Bush tax cuts have cost the government 2 trillion dollars JUST during Bush's two terms"
Citation needed, given that total tax revenue went up every year bush was in office. A lo of left wing sources ignore the effects of taxation on economy growth. I'd argue we wouldn't have grown as much under bush if it weren't for tax cuts

If total tax revenue went up every year he was in office, how did he turn a surplus into a deficit?

There is a logic failure.

I havent read the rest of the debate, but it could happen in two ways:

1- if spending goes up more than the tax revenue
2- if the cost of servicing debt repayments rises more than the tax revenues

Fasces/Jack - Tax *revenue* has nothing to do with deficits. Democrats passed budgets with massive spending increases, which Bush stupidly signed in to law. Bush might as well have been a Democrat for all the new spending he approved.

In other words, both of you, Fasces and Jack, are being jackasses pretending that tax rates / revenue are the cause of deficits.

IN your own household, do you base your budgets on how much you spend, or do you first look at your revenue and THEN determine your spending?

Good lord...stop being morons.

"Newsflash. You and your compatriots lost. I know it burns, but the country is better off with the crazy fuckers marginalized. Including you and Gunfighter."

The day will come (and it is coming soon, I fear) when we will jump off of a debt cliff, and every American will regret the moment when he wrote off "crazy fuckers" like me instead of heeding our warnings. We could have pulled the e-brake today and put a stop to this madness. Instead, largely because of the cowardly Republicans, we're going to continue speeding towards the abyss for at least 3 more months.

2001-2007: Senate and House controlled by Republicans.

It wasn't until 2006 that the Dems captured control.

So yeah. Try and sell us another one, Krellin.... your grasp of facts is as bad as your shitty rhetoric.

It seems a safe bet that several of these people only voted no because intense pressure was being put on them from the tea party, and the minority leader told them their vote wasn't needed.

Hear! Hear! Gunfighter

Why is it that American liberals claim to desire diversity and freedom of conscious, but then denounce people that disagree with them? Are they too stupid to understand the transparent contradiction in their hollow rhetoric?

I don't know if it actually is a contradiction, Emac. You can desire and fight for freedom in the sense of their being no legal consequences to somebody based on their beliefs and point of view; but then still decry and denounce the points of view that some people use their freedom to promote.

Just because I think that communists should be free to preach communism, for example, does not mean I won't oppose them.

Emac: Try to comprehend this:

I support your legal right to say whatever silly fucking idea enters that mind of yours.

However, if your idea is silly and/or shitty, then I'll exercise my own freedom of expression and say you're a moron.

Its no contradiction at all, but its not shocking you're not capable of picking up the difference.

"Why is it that American liberals claim to desire diversity and freedom of conscious, but then denounce people that disagree with them? Are they too stupid to understand the transparent contradiction in their hollow rhetoric?"

Mainly because we have a hard time dealing with your terrible spelling.

I'm just gonna throw this out at the people who are convinced we're close to an unsustainable debt:

We haven't even tried a national property tax yet. Or a VAT. Or seriously cutting our ludicrously bloated military. We do some of those, and still we can't deal with our debt, then maybe I'll start heeding some of y'all's cries to gut the social safety net. Until that point, though, we probably shouldn't, because we get a much better multiplier when we actually try and boost the less well off, rather than structuring our economy to centralize wealth in the hands of the richest 5,000 people in the world.

It's a little bit alarming to see somebody who apparently believes that every type of tax taps into a separate, otherwise-untapped source of wealth.

Why on earth are we arguing with someone who is literally a Fascist, and Krellin, who is mostly kinda insane. Also, Gunfighter is a waste of time to talk to.

Good point, phil. I guess I'm an optimist.