Cont: The Biden Presidency (3)

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theprestige said:
Fair enough. One thing we can note about the Biden presidency is that his adminstration has not come before the American people with an economically-viable proposal to cut inflation, with a fair assessment of the trade-offs, a rational argument for why he plans to enact that proposal, and daring the GOP to get in his way.
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What would that accomplish? Regardless of what Biden could suggest, the right would gnash their teeth, rend their garments, and cry “Tyranny!” and “Communism!” just as they did with the COVID response.

theprestige said:
If the only thing standing between him and reducing inflation is his refusal to use the bully pulpit for that purpose, then he's a jackass.
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It isn’t.
 
Did you miss the part where inflation was world-wide TP?

Did you see that the price of gas went down a small amount today? And did you see that Biden had accused the oil companies of raising prices unnecessarily last week? Think there might be a connection?

Also were you aware that oil companies are exporting US oil? If all we need is to "drill baby drill" then why is there enough for those companies to export?
 
Let's say Biden comes out with a slam-dunk of a plan to bring inflation under control and all the experts sign off that it is just the best thing we could do.

Does anyone honestly believe the GOP would let it be put into action while Biden is in office? We literally had 2+ years of them putting party ahead of people's lives because they thought it gave them a political advantage. They are currently putting party ahead of Constitution.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Still better than walking up the plane stairs not knowing you have toilet paper stuck to your shoe. :sdl:
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Or having someone hold your hand to walk down a ramp.

Or not knowing how to fold an umbrella.

Or being thoroughly winded after one flight of stairs.

Or having wildly different standards of what constitutes metaphorical allusions to being a total failure...
 
Upchurch said:
Let's say Biden comes out with a slam-dunk of a plan to bring inflation under control and all the experts sign off that it is just the best thing we could do.

Does anyone honestly believe the GOP would let it be put into action while Biden is in office? We literally had 2+ years of them putting party ahead of people's lives because they thought it gave them a political advantage. They are currently putting party ahead of Constitution.
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If Biden has a good plan to control inflation, and keeps it to himself because he doesn't want to bring it to the voting public and put the GOP on the spot... then he's a scumbag.

Remember when Obama pushed through healthcare reform in the face of stiff political opposition, because he believed the country needed it? Remember when he and other prominent Democrats took to the bully pulpit, and lobbied the public hard to support their proposals, because they believed it was the right thing to do?

But Biden won't tell the public his proposal to bring inflation under control, because if he does there'll be a slapfight in Congress and that would suck?
 
theprestige said:
Remember when Obama pushed through healthcare reform in the face of stiff political opposition, because he believed the country needed it? Remember when he and other prominent Democrats took to the bully pulpit, and lobbied the public hard to support their proposals, because they believed it was the right thing to do?
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That would be the same President the GOP swore to stop his agenda in every way possible? The same reform that knee-capped in Obama's bipartisanship efforts and then voted against anyway? The same law that the GOP fought tooth and nail in court to make even less useful until it is now just a handful of changes that were far too popular for Trump to "repeal and replace"?

That was also during a narrow window when the Democrats had a far stronger hold on the legislature that they could pass legislature with no conservative support, be they Republican or Democrat. The bully pulpit had nothing to do with it.

theprestige said:
But Biden won't tell the public his proposal to bring inflation under control, because if he does there'll be a slapfight in Congress and that would suck?
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I think you are inadvertently answering my two questions from earlier, but I'll ask it again:
  1. What would it accomplish?
  2. Does anyone honestly believe the GOP would let it be put into action while Biden is in office?
I'm going to go out onto a limb and guess that you don't really care about any plan to control inflation. You seem to be looking for fuel for the conservative rage fire. When you don't get any, that becomes the fuel, as you are doing in the above post.
 
Upchurch said:
I think you are inadvertently answering my two questions from earlier, but I'll ask it again:
1. What would it accomplish?
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A. It would present the American public with a real plan to control inflation.

B. It would make it clear to the American public who in government supported the plan, and who opposed it.

C. It would give the American public the opportunity to pressure their representatives to support the plan.

D. It would give the American public the opportunity to vote their representatives out of office if they don't support the plan.

You seem to be arguing that if the president has a good plan for improving the nation, he should keep it secret and not try to drum up public support for it.

2. Does anyone honestly believe the GOP would let it be put into action while Biden is in office?
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The GOP seems pretty firmly behind Biden's support for Ukraine. If he has a good plan for inflation, shouldn't he at least try to put it before the public, and openly challenge the GOP to oppose it? Why give up on making things better, without even trying? Is that what you want from your president? That he sit on good ideas and necessary reforms, because he can't guarantee a veto-proof majority up front?

Whatever happened to the bully pulpit?
 
theprestige said:
A. It would present the American public with a real plan to control inflation.

B. It would make it clear to the American public who in government supported the plan, and who opposed it.

C. It would give the American public the opportunity to pressure their representatives to support the plan.

D. It would give the American public the opportunity to vote their representatives out of office if they don't support the plan.

You seem to be arguing that if the president has a good plan for improving the nation, he should keep it secret and not try to drum up public support for it.


The GOP seems pretty firmly behind Biden's support for Ukraine. If he has a good plan for inflation, shouldn't he at least try to put it before the public, and openly challenge the GOP to oppose it? Why give up on making things better, without even trying? Is that what you want from your president? That he sit on good ideas and necessary reforms, because he can't guarantee a veto-proof majority up front?

Whatever happened to the bully pulpit?
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Yeah, no, we've left "golly let's just all be honest and I'm sure the GOP will pitch in and cooperate!" behind long, long ago. You're a decent fellow, but your party is scum. I don't envy you the cognitive dissonance it must be taking to have come this far without seeing that.

Biden sharing what he wants to happen only lays down a recipe for what to oppose happening. Without that, it's possible the GOP may do the right thing by mistake.
 
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theprestige said:
A. It would present the American public with a real plan to control inflation.

B. It would make it clear to the American public who in government supported the plan, and who opposed it.

C. It would give the American public the opportunity to pressure their representatives to support the plan.

D. It would give the American public the opportunity to vote their representatives out of office if they don't support the plan.
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These are all completely out of touch with American politics as it currently exists.

theprestige said:
You seem to be arguing that if the president has a good plan for improving the nation, he should keep it secret and not try to drum up public support for it.
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I'm saying that it doesn't matter if the President has a good plan for improving the nation or not, 40%+ will oppose it purely for partisan reasons and the vast majority of the GOP will assure that he can't enact most or all of it.


theprestige said:
The GOP seems pretty firmly behind Biden's support for Ukraine. If he has a good plan for inflation, shouldn't he at least try to put it before the public, and openly challenge the GOP to oppose it?
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Yes, they are behind Biden on one military issue that the right-wing media had to be drug kicking and screaming with the Putin apologetics. It is a complete non sequitur to saying, because of that, the GOP would back a domestic fiscal policy from a Democrat that would likely include price capping and interest rate hikes.

theprestige said:
Why give up on making things better, without even trying?
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Who said anything about not trying? There are thing that can and are being done with out GOP support. You're asking about talking about things, that's different than doing things.

theprestige said:
Whatever happened to the bully pulpit?
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It's called "social media" now and everyone uses it.
 
Beelzebuddy said:
Yeah, no, we've left "golly let's just all be honest and I'm sure the GOP will pitch in and cooperate!"
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Nobody said that. I'm sure the GOP will fight it tooth and nail.

Well, that's not quite true either. We won't know how hard the GOP will fight it, until we actually try. I'm questioning the premise that the president shouldn't even try.
 
Upchurch said:
Who said anything about not trying? There are thing that can and are being done with out GOP support. You're asking about talking about things, that's different than doing things.
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I'm asking about your scenario, in which Biden has a plan to control inflation, but he's not even trying to enact it, because of inevitable GOP opposition.

In my view, the right thing for the president to do in such a scenario is use the bully pulpit to put it before the public, and do whatever he can to drum up public support for it.

In your view, apparently, the right thing for the president to do is sit on the plan and not even tell the public he has one.
 
Upchurch said:
It is a complete non sequitur to saying, because of that, the GOP would back a domestic fiscal policy from a Democrat that would likely include price capping and interest rate hikes.
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I would hope that the GOP would not accept foolish solutions like price caps. Interest rate hikes are out of Biden's hands (the Fed) and are coming without any legislation required.
 
theprestige said:
I'm asking about your scenario, in which Biden has a plan to control inflation, but he's not even trying to enact it, because of inevitable GOP opposition.
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You misunderstand. I'm not saying he's not even trying to fix it. He is trying through non-legislative means.


theprestige said:
In my view, the right thing for the president to do in such a scenario is use the bully pulpit to put it before the public, and do whatever he can to drum up public support for it.
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That's so quaint.

theprestige said:
In your view, apparently, the right thing for the president to do is sit on the plan and not even tell the public he has one.
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You could only say that if you haven't actually read what I've written.
 
Upchurch said:
Isn't it more important to actually do something?
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The premise is that this is something that needs to be done, and that the president isn't even trying to do it. In fact he's ignoring one of the most significant levers of power available to his office.

And apparently your answer to that is that he must be doing secret things we're not hearing about, that are totally having a positive effect but he's just not going to tell us what he's doing or how well it's working for some reason.
 
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