Politics The Elephant in the room...The GOP today

Did the GOP ever have the youth vote???
I can't recall it from my years...not until perhaps Reagan or GW in his first term.

I think that most of the young these days don't care for the moral restrictions put on the GOP by the religious right.
If you could keep to libertarian ideals...government minimalism and corporate support...then they'd be good to go.
But youth of today like to express individualism...and let others do their own thing too.

That and TRULY show they can control their spending without traumatizing the government structure.

 

Out. Of. Touch.

There is a lot of data floating around.

Do you think the Republican Party is in touch with the concerns of most people in the United States today, or is it out of touch? - The Washington Post

 

BOY...are they on a ROLL!!
It's like they've read and taken to heart with gusto, "How to Lose Friends & Alienate People"

Now all they have to do is bring the government to a halt again for inane things...oh wait!

It's deja vu all over again... (**My eyes are starting to get tired from rolling them too much)

 

Can you imagine these folks in power?

Can you really?

 

Yes, I have...which is why I voted against them often enough.
I envision a bull in a china shop...no subtlety about them. Overkill is the keyword.

Again, it's not like I fully appreciate the Dems either...but at least I don't get the sensation of raving hordes, testosterone actions and corporate lordship.

It's not much of a choice...the wishy-washy bureaucrats vs. the chest-beating jocks.

I'd like thoughtful decisive action without over-reach.
I wouldn't think that's asking too much...but I guess it is.

My votes tend to reflect often not voting FOR someone or a party on one side,
but voting AGAINST what I think the other side would end up doing.

And unfortunately, in the GOP's case...they've proven their tendencies again & again.

 

So the problems really started when Obama became president. I'm wondering how much of it is as a reaction to him vs. the natural course that would have happened anyway.

Though it's interesting to note the recent spike.

Meanwhile the unemployment rate is down to 7.5% (avg. is 5.8%), the GDP growth rate is 1.8% (historically low, but higher than every other member of the G8, some of whom are experiencing negative growth currently), and while the debt-to-GDP ratio is indeed above 100 at 101.6, it's much lower than it was after the Great Depression (121.7) and it's certainly better than Greece's 156.90, Italy's 127.00, and Japan's 211.70.

What the RSC wants to do at this point would amount to austerity. Guess what? That's what Greece and Italy have done to devastating effect. Japan has abandoned the idea, and are now poised for growth (though, admittedly, whether it's sustainable is yet to be seen).

The RSC's positions on taxes and spending are unrealistic. Their social conservatism is a problem too.

These guys getting into power would be a nightmare.

 

I was referring mainly to the recent spike in the membership of the RSC. I'm assuming it, specifically, has a lot to do with opposition to Obama, as it happened over the past couple of elections.

Though I do appreciate the longer-term considerations regarding "big government." As I understand it, opposition to "big government" is a conservative issue, not just a Republican issue. Conservatives want, in theory, less spending and less taxation. However, the extremes to which the RSC takes its positions is untenable. This is the case regardless of how long conservatives' current concerns have been around.

 

The biggest net gain was for the 112th Congress, which dwarfed the gain in the 107th (the second biggest) by 33%.

Note that the 112th Congress coincides with the midway point of Obama's first term, while the 107th coincided with the end of Clinton's second term.

Also note that this big gain in the 112th demonstrates that "saturation" wasn't a problem.

How so? Please list all the nations that have year-to-year balanced budgets without tax increases.

I don't consider balanced-budget legislation extreme, however. Not in and of itself anyway. Canada's Liberal Party legislated balanced budgets, and such a thing works in theory, but in practice it's unrealistic, as Canada's Conservative Party will tell you.

Sure, it may make sense to cap deficit spending to a certain percentage of GDP, or maybe have other restrictions, but it doesn't make sense to completely avoid deficits in the face of natural disasters or economic crises.

For example, if it weren't for deficit spending post-2007, the world may have ended up like something out of a Mad Max film. Or a socialist utopia. Something completely different from the current status quo, anyway.

 

Can we see this value? I'm not sure what you mean. Can we look at these things practically? Is that so bad?

The economic crisis had a lot more to do with it than both McCain and Obama put together. The bulk of the Tea Party movement began in 2009, which immediately followed the worst of the financial crisis' "shit hitting the fan." The focus is disproportionately on the ideological perceptions of Obama's actions, rather than on inputs and outputs as a whole.

If we're going to look at taxes from that perspective, we need to drill down further.

The GDP per capita in each nation (accounting for purchasing power parity) in Int'l $—with tax revenue as a % of GDP next to each:

United States: $49,922 (27%)
Canada: $42,734 (32%)
China: $9,162 (17%)

The thing with China is that it has a large relatively poor rural population that puts it out of whack compared to Canada and the U.S. China also has a health care system whereby the patient pays for maybe 20% of services, while two levels of government pick up the rest.

China is also a much different economy. Canada and the U.S. are postindustrial economies that rely heavily on services—76% and 79% of GDP, respectively—compared to resources and industry. China, on the other hand, balances almost equally between industry and services—45.3% and 44.6%, respectively. China recently moved from a developing economy to an industrialized one. It has also moved from a communist/command economy to a mixed economy with free market elements. This explains the current tax revenue as a percentage of GDP (low) compared to its economic growth (high). Its infrastructure cost is low compared to postindustrial North America, as it's currently being developed to accommodate expanding industrialization.

So China might look "extreme," but it's not really. It's difficult comparing nations at different stages of economic development. It's like comparing apples to oranges.

Comparing the U.S. to Canada, however, would be ideal. Americans, as demonstrated above, pay substantially lower taxes as a percentage of GDP compared to Canadians, despite having a substantially higher GDP per capita. Yet both nations are running deficits—$33.9 billion CAD (1.8% of GDP) and $1.09 trillion USD (6.9% of GDP).

Would you consider any of that extreme?

You know what I would consider extreme? Eliminating a $1.09 trillion deficit too quickly when it represents 6.9% of GDP.

While Canada is in a better position in this regard, even Conservatives know that the deficit should not be eliminated overnight, even if it's only 1.8% of GDP.

It's a kind of fiscal responsibility. Unlike what happens in, say, Greece.
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Between Clinton and Obama, it seems that if you want to find a fiscal conservative in American politics, you should look to the Democrats. I do realize that Tea Partiers hate all that Republican spending too, but unfortunately, they take extreme positions that are akin to Greek-style austerity (read: disastrous).

 

I'd rather bring it down to a few sentences if possible.

There is no need to confuse the issue with logarithmic scales and a statistician's take on the numbers. Can we start thinking in terms of relevance? The numbers jumped sharply during Clinton and Obama, but the numbers have been growing steadily either way, and now RSC represents 73% of House Republicans (compared to 33% when Clinton left office). So nearly three quarters compared to a third. That represents a significant shift towards the kind of extreme positions the RSC takes in opposition to Obama's centrism.

So why the surge towards extremism inside and outside Congress in 2009? What was material to that?

So would you agree that reducing the deficit as the RSC would have it is an extreme position?