Travis Pahl <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> asked: >> Yes, as I wrote previously. Some legislative votes are just playing to the >> audience, not about legislative content.
>So the republicans are playing to what audience when they vote to >increase the debt limit? And how can you say that it did not matter? When the votes are undertaken to increase the debt limit, a vote of "no" is playing to the audience, a vote of "yes" is getting on with business. Everybody knows spending will not be stopped by such a vote -- that the ways to limit spending are in the individual appropriations measures (which in some cases are packed into omnibus bills, in which case the real action is the amendments), not by this routine vote. If a "no" vote were ever to carry, what would be the effect? The excess spending isn't stopped by it, because it's already law. What would happen in effect would be that the Treasury account would be overdrawn. Are such checks likely to bounce? > Had they voted no, would the government not be forced to reduce >spending? No. In the 1980s & 1990s there were indeed some votes and vetos that had the purported effect of shutting down fedgov. What kept fedgov in business were emergency bills that shut down everything deemed unnecessary, including stopping payment to personnel. When Reagan did it by veto, the major media reported it as shutting down fedgov, and the Republicans were vilified, deluged with opprobrium by mail, etc. Eventually the spigots were turned on with the result that the reputation of the GOP was massively tarnished while they got hardly any result in reduction of the ultimate spending. When the GOP did it by vote when prez Clinton wanted more spending, AGAIN the GOP was vilified by the media and ultimately acceded with nothing good to show for it. So the lesson was that as long as the major media are in their current state of "left" domination (i.e. for the foreseeable future), any great show like that of fiscal restraint -- holding the mass of programs hostage in order to bargain for cuts -- will redound massively to the ill of the party of fiscal restraint. Had the GOP held fast, they would've massively been replaced at the next election by bigger-spending candidates, whether of their own or the other party. The way to achieve spending cuts is instead bill by bill, program by program, which as you can see (by the way you began this thread) is very difficult! But at least it has a CHANCE of succeeding even while the major media plump for big $. OTOH, the party out of power can always vote symbolically against raiing the debt limit, as long as they're secure in the knowledge that "yes" will carry. In Your Sly Tribe, Robert in the Bronx _______________________________________________ Libnw mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] List info and subscriber options: http://immosys.com/mailman/listinfo/libnw Archives: http://immosys.com/mailman//pipermail/libnw
