USA Politics

Once again, there's nothing wrong with ensuring a fair deal. I think unions do a good job with that.

I think when they protect bad tenured teachers (or bad tenured ANYONE) at the expense of young, talented teachers who want to help kids learn their potential...yeah.
 
Exactly, teachers should get paid more, good teachers should be paid a lot more and like anyone they should get the best deal they can get.  For too long, they have gotten away with being the guardians of education and "protecting the children" when in many cases they are doing the opposite and anyone who questions them is anti-teacher ... I am sick of people rolling over for these arguments.
 
bearfan said:
Public Unions, IMO, deserve a special case in hell.   They are in part responsible for the high cost and poor quality in education.  I am glad people like Chris Christie are going after them.
Click to expand...

When I was interviewing several years ago at a charter school. I entered a small discussion witht he interviewer about unions. In short his opinion was unions were good at some point and they were great at what they did when they needed to do it, but now they are an outdated club, that has overstayed its welcome.
 
Yeah, unfunded legacy costs for unions are killing local and state governments. I agree with LC about unions getting fair deals for thier workers, but then there is just down right greed. Lifetime pensions and healthcare at taxpayer expense. The many supporting the few.
 
Bill O'Reilly is a worthless pig and an ignorant ass. Of course, that's always true, but here's my reason for saying so at this moment...

If you're going to ask the POTUS a question on live worldwide TV, let the man answer. O'Reilly, as usual, interrupts whenever he doesn't like two words of the answer he's hearing - then he makes a baseless accusation and doesn't give a chance to respond.

You wanna know why he's able to do that? Care to know why people let him? Because normal, decent folks are taught from childhood onward that interrupting someone else is rude as hell. We don't even consider it. How the hell can people have an intelligent conversation if no one can finish a sentence? Only the most boorish and brain-damaged twats interrupt people all the time, and O'Reilly is king of the twats.

Thus Obama, a civilized man, tries to let O'Reilly finish speaking. But the dumbass piece of garbage from Fox never feels any need to extend such a courtesy to anyone else - not even the fucking POTUS.

O'Reilly made a complete mockery of the traditional Super Bowl POTUS interview. If anyone at Fox had the slightest shred of integrity, he'd be fired over this. But we all know Fox is an integrity-free zone...
 
I am not seeing Webb as VP (this year), though I can see him running in 2016.  Dumping Biden (unless it is part of a bigger "we are changing course" plan) has it's negatives.  For the electorate in general, it could be seen as part of an admission of failure.  Plus any Dems thinking about running in 2016 would not be too happy.
 
Kyl from AZ announced he will not run in 2012, leaving the AZ Senate seat open.  This could be a really close race.
 
It will be a very interesting race for sure! Kyl is getting up there in age, and he will likely campaign hard for his replacement.

I wonder if Napolitano will consider resigning her Cabinet post to run.
 
I read an article on politico, it also assumed Napolitano, but noted in a semi-recent poll, her negatives were 55%.
 
She is definitely less popular now than she was when she was governor. A year can change a lot, however; hard to tell what she might do. I think she's not a very good Sec DHS and I would like to see her move on.
 
Obama sure has made a big run to the center, the report that came out recommending elinimating Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and getting the government to varying degrees out of the home mortgage business is a fairly substantial change from his earlier proposals.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/arc ... lay/71173/

If I were the GOP in the House, I would take this report and pass the more strict version right now and see if he is serious about this.
 
I've read that report; it's a fair report. Government probably should, with the recent changes to how home mortgage is done (an unheralded success of the last congress, imo), consider getting out of Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae over the next 10 years.
 
It will be interesting to see what the final budget numbers end up being. In a way conservatives "won" already since the debate is no longer to cut or not to cut, but how deep cuts should be.  Who wins the PR campaign will be the key to this and go a long way towards determining the 2012 elections (House, Senate, and President).
 
I think that everyone sensible who looks at the budget agrees that cuts should be made. I think Democrats are often unreasonable with such things.

All that being said, I think taxes are too low, and probably by end of FY 2011 should be increased. I also think the military could use a few cuts, and I think that Medicare and Social Security need some looking-at so they can be reworked to be more fiscally responsible.
 
I think taxes are a bit too high myself ... I do agree that defense needs to be looked at and it will take something similar to the base closing commision of the 1990s to make a significant dent, but it is something that needs to happen and fairly soon.

The commision as good of a job as possible to take politics out of it and removed a lot of the "we need this base because it creates jobs in my district" versus an actual defense need.  Though this time beyond bases, they need to look at weapons systems and which ones need to go, we still spend too much based on a land war with the Soviets versus the current threats.  Also as a policy decision, it is time to let continental Europe/Japan defend themselves more. Not a total withdrawal, I see immense value to our presense in Korea and bases in Japan that support it and bases in Europe that support efforts in the Middle East.  We have spent a huge amount of money to defend the world while other countries spend very little on defense in comparison, that needs to change.
 
I definitely agree with defense. The US Army really doesn't need to be as strong as it is; the Navy is and should continue to be the primary force projection of the USA, and the emphasis should be there for spending.

However, taxes under Obama are the lowest they have been since Truman was president; I think it is hard to say they are too high at this point. Certainly it'd be nice if they can stay low, but I imagine that they will have to go up eventually. Receipts are starting to crawl back up as unemployment is now receding. Still, though, the recession hurt the US economy heavily.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top