Classy as ever, Democratic Party

[unixronin]

And yes, I mean that sarcastically.

http://carlyfailorina.com/ (paid for by the California Democratic Party).  What more is there to say?

Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of Carly Fiorina, who to all practical purposes single-handedly destroyed Hewlett-Packard (with only minimal assistance from her interim predecessor Richard Hackborn, whom you've probably never heard of).  But this is a new low in pettiness in politics.  What's the next step?  Will the parties start publicly calling each other's candidates poopyheads?  Will the candidates themselves start flicking boogers at their opponents in televised debates?

Dear Democratic and Republican Parties:

Please to hurry up and finish self-destructing, so that the rest of us can pick up the pieces and get on with America.  KTHXBAI.

Comments

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

uuuh, wait a minute ... the California legislature has been overwhelmingly Democratic for HOW long exactly...?

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

The Democrats don't have the 2/3s majority, though, that's required to change the laws to respond to an economic downturn. The Hooverists who wrote the supermajority "balanced budget" rules, and who are now blocking changes, apparently have never heard of a cyclical deficit, and the state is hurting now.

I wonder what the state's ability to respond to a major disaster is at this point? Like, say, an earthquake.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Honestly, how many other states are in much better shape right now?

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

California has been caught up in the collapse of two bubbles, and then the Republican minority decided to hold its breath and stamp its feet until its policies were implemented--extensions of the policies that got the state into trouble in the first place. &, thanks to bad initiatives, the Democratic majority can't do a damn thing about it. As of last July, their bonds were rated Baa1 by Moody's--lowest of any state and two levels above junk bonds. California laid off 26,590 teachers last year.

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

When you don't have the supermajority needed to overwhelm your governing partner, you need to compromise. If you are not willing to bend to a less partisan budget plan, you can expect exactly the sort of train wreck that Kalifornia is experiencing right now.

Right now, hard partisan politics are not playing well to the party in power anywhere in the country.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

And even with partisan problems aside, when you have a controlling majority in BOTH houses of Congress, AND you hold the White house, and you're still having to make deals that do things like exempting entire states from particular taxes just to get your own party to sign onto your agenda and you STILL can't get it passed, perhaps you should be asking yourself whether you're doing the right thing.

But I digress.

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

They are looking at Medicare and the imminent retirement of the baby boomers as part of the federal budget. If they do not stop the growth of medical costs, the whole budget explodes. Creating a better insurance environment will not do it. They must take control of the entire cost structure in medicine to eliminate cost increases. That is the imperative. No one is ever going to like it. But they are trying to be responsible.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I'm not disputing the necessity of fixing the problem. I'm just questioning whether Congress is even CAPABLE of fixing it when everyone wants their back scratched to go along with it, even if we make the (IMHO entirely unjustified) assumption that Congress even understands what's wrong with the existing system, let alone how to fix it.

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

Congress is obviously incapable of fixing the problem, even assuming they understand it. They are too beholden to their special interest constituencies to make the tough choices that would penalize their supporters.

Make a simple comparison: Does your car insurance cover repairs? Tune-ups? Oil Changes? Gasoline? Parking charges? Some medical insurance plans do the equivalent of all of those things. (Mostly union plans.) That kind of skews the costs for the rest of us. If your car needs a repair, does the mechanic charge you one price if you have their preferred insurance, and five times that rate if you don't? That is the way medical practice works. Is the price the mechanic charged controlled by a government agency based on the list price for the service? People would go ballistic if that were true. Yet we accept it for medical. Why?

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Precisely.