Quote:
Originally Posted by kane
You have to hand it to them. The republicans have a way of convincing he same people to vote for them over and over again even though they never actually do what they say. Whenever they are not in power they talk about how they need to be elected so that they can shrink the size of the government, cut taxes and reduce the deficit while spending money wisely.
Of course they don't do that. They grow the size of the government, spend money like crazy and increase the deficit. They did cut taxes under Bush, but it was primarily a tax cut for the rich so I'm guess about 95% of their voters really didn't see much of a difference.
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It's not like the democrats actually do what they say either. If they hadn't sold out to the health industry Obama could have got the public option in at will with an up and down vote after stripping Leiberman of any responsibilities and threatening the Blue Dogs. He'd just have to let the half dozen democrats with the most conservative electorates vote against it to remain politically viable and crush any other opposition and he could have done it. The public option (in and of itself) is such a mild and sound policy it truly wouldn't have been hard to sell it or at least craft a version that was simple and effective enough to sell. It's still so manifestly right wing compared to every other first world country. They're basically displaying calculated incompetence. If they don't at least have medicare buy-in in the final bill they deserve to be permanently out of power.
The idea of having a two party system should at the very least ensure that the base of either party can at least fool themselves into thinking there is progress being made in their general direction. The illusion stops working when they are functionally identical. At least Bush actually gave tax cuts..