Travis Pahl <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in part: >> I'm saying the federal gov't would "shut down" again (operate under some >> emergency bills to keep necessary offices open),
>Which is a great demonstration to people that most things are not necessary. Which you & I understand, and a few mostly wise guy columnists pointed out. Other than us, however, there was a clamor to re-open the Wash. Monument, etc., i.e. return to gov't business as usual. The clamor was vastly magnified by the mass media, which painted the shutdown in highly negative terms. In fact, one might say the clamor WAS the mass media, in that without them no such clamor would've been heard...but it moved the issue! >> those who voted for the >> shutdown would get the blame again, >Which would be nearly all of congress if the republicans had voted >correctly this time. >> and the voting public would vote them >> out of office at the next election, >As they rightly should if congress does not decrease spending. Assuming, naively, that the vote was meaningful and not just a chance for Dems & Reps to posture opposition. >> replacing them with bigger spenders. >Based on what? You cliam republicans were elected because they >promised to cut spending. Why would these same voting populace vote >in bigger spenders if what they want was smaller spenders and they >were upset because they got bigger spenders. "I voted for X to restrain gov't spending. I didn't want the whole goddamn gov't shut down! So now I'm voting for Y, who won't pull that stunt." >> But in order for them to spend less, they have to vote for lower >> authorizations. By the time it gets to a vote on raising the debt limit, >> that opportunity has passed; it's all-or-nothing by then. >You are claiming the republican congress not had plenty of >oppurtunities to pass lower authorizations? They sure did. That's the time to complain, not over some silly show vote regarding the debt limit. Look at individual spending measures, and point out what you'd cut & why, and hope to persuade others. >ACtually i think most of the population is responsible. It is a tiny >fraction of politicians that are responsible. What makes you think representatives aren't representative, at least in general terms? Anyone can be a politician. There's no religious test for office. By what freakish bad luck did this irrepresentative sample get in office? And the irrepresentative sample that preceded them, etc., all the way back to ancient Greece? >> And it's not as if legislators are some special breed of people who have >> this problem. Games have been played with volunteer participants to model >> legislative budgeting processes. Result? Damn near the same thing the >> actual legislators vote for. >Did these people playing the games be told they are supposed to >represent people that want less spending and have a duty to do their >best to do that, or where they just told make a budget. They were just volunteers interested in civics. They were told, here are various desiderata (possible spedning items), confer and make a budget based on whatever values you have. In some cases in round 2 they were told they were over some spending limit (not in balance with revenues, for instance), and told they had to come up with another budget that was within that overall limit. But of course having a balanced budget is but one desideratum; without that as an absolute rule, they didn't come up with one. >> When Clinton "shut down" fedgov by veto, bargaining for more spending, I >> was hoping the public would blame POTUS the same way they did when it was >> Reagan. They didn't. They blamed Republicans in both cases, and it was >> because of the media. >Who cares. The media try to influence people, but the people voted >for republicans Sure, but often by very slight pluralities or majorities. It doesn't take much to swing many swing voters to the other side, and a dramatic show of "shutting down" fedgov (dramatized by the media) can produce just such a swing. "Can?" It DID! Polls very quickly started swinging away from confidence in the Republican Party. >> How do you infer whom I support and to what degree? All I'm doing is >> pointing out that your criticism is naive. >Did you not vote for bush? In 2004, yes. For reasons I've already posted, I wouldn't vote for the Libertarian Party nominee, and Bush is much better than Kerry. However, if I thought I could organize to swing a bunch of others to vote, I'd've tried to swing them towards Nader, to encourage him to keep running and help smash the Democrats. But I already posted about all this. > Pataki? Bloomberg? Neither. However, if I thought the way I do today in 2002, I'd've voted for Pataki in the general election. >Once again, the vote was not for show but has real world effects. Then you were suckered. >So you are now suggesting that republicans increase of the debt limit >has no effect on you? It does. No it doesn't. What would a vote of "no" actually do? Everybody would honor Treasury checks as if the account weren't overdrawn. In effect, they'd be borrowing from their creditors. Perhaps there would be a "shut down" as when omnibus authorization bills were vetoed or voted down. But as we've seen, the result would be temporary and ineffectual at best; probably it would wind up costing more. Indeed, I recall at the time that the net DID wind up costing more because somehow shutting down & starting up again incurred extra costs. 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
