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18 Absurdities of the McConnell-Schumer Omnibus Spending Bill


Albwan

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3 minutes ago, LeviF said:

We’re in the “loot the treasury” phase of a republic. 


Yeah let’s ignore Trumps looting when his administration mysteriously lost track of $100 BILLION dollars from the PPP boondoggle.
 

Or how much of our tax payer dollars went to his resorts… why wouldn’t Pompeo release that info in 2020?

 

smfh
 

 

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9 hours ago, BillStime said:


Yeah let’s ignore Trumps looting when his administration mysteriously lost track of $100 BILLION dollars from the PPP boondoggle.
 

Or how much of our tax payer dollars went to his resorts… why wouldn’t Pompeo release that info in 2020?

 

smfh
 

 

Thank you for reminding us of the fact that you are primarily a democrat, not an American. 

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3 hours ago, fridge said:

 

The sheer hypocrisy of stating this now, and not after the absolute pillaging we witnessed during the Trump administration.

start. 

this crap is at least 2 decades and counting. its just getting more and more brazen.

 

 

 

 

Edited by Chris farley
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Is there anyone who has produced a full throated defense of this? Or is it literally just gerontocracy in action and any illusion of representation is gone?

19 hours ago, BillStime said:


Yeah let’s ignore Trumps looting when his administration mysteriously lost track of $100 BILLION dollars from the PPP boondoggle.
 

Or how much of our tax payer dollars went to his resorts… why wouldn’t Pompeo release that info in 2020?

 

smfh
 

 


you constantly respond to my posts with nonsense about trump. This is odd considering what I’ve said here about trump and the fact that trump was not nearly right enough for my taste. 
 

Congress began looting the treasury long ago, shortly after 9/11. You have no business talking about these things amongst adults. 

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15 minutes ago, LeviF said:

Is there anyone who has produced a full throated defense of this? Or is it literally just gerontocracy in action and any illusion of representation is gone?

 

Not a defense of this per se, but my understanding of why it happens:

 

We have a two-party system, which means that elections are zero-sum. You win, I lose and vice versa. As long as we have a first-past-the-post election system, it'll always be two parties, and it'll always be zero sum. Doesn't matter if we put in term limits, campaign finance reform, etc. So long as the goal of every candidate is securing a plurality of the votes against a single opponent, the other side will always be seen as the bad guy.

 

Governance is not supposed to be zero-sum. It's supposed to be negotiation, compromise and getting less of everything you want (and a little that you don't want) in exchange for actually making a difference. In the less polarized times, there were conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans. There were urban conservatives and rural liberals. The rise of cable news, the internet, and social media has lead to geographical and ideological sorting. This has led to an almost unprecedented level of polarization.

 

So now zero-sum politics has infected the governance. Passing something when your team is in charge is bad for my team, even if the bill being passed is overall beneficial to my constituents. Therefore, I will vote against my constituents' interests to deny a win to the opposing team (of course, given that no bill is perfect, I will find some fig leaf of a provision, claim it is unacceptable, and blame your team for putting it in there). Regular order breaks down and whatever team is in charge just puts everything into a giant package, horse trades billions in earmarks, and rams it through at the last minute when the alternatives to not passing it are somehow worse than the bill itself.

 

If you're Mr. Smith who went to Washington, the end result of this is that you're given the following choice: vote for this monstrosity of a bill or potentially let the American economy collapse. What's the least bad option? Can you blame even the best-intentioned member of Congress from swallowing their pride and voting for this, vowing it'll be the last time (but knowing deep down in their heart that it won't)?

 

The only solution for this is electoral reform that returns the power to the people, not Washington, and creates incentives for cooperation, not invective polarization. But that would require those benefitting from the current system voting to replace it...

Edited by ChiGoose
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Yesterday, @LeviF wrote this:

 

20 hours ago, LeviF said:

We’re in the “loot the treasury” phase of a republic. 

 

Now, the "adult" suffering dementia states this:

 

34 minutes ago, LeviF said:

Congress began looting the treasury long ago, shortly after 9/11. You have no business talking about these things amongst adults. 


You are a child hack.

 

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