4 ms·

social issues are a nice little diversion from what government is really all about: taking your money, borrowing against it, and spending it.

CelestialTeapot 10y ago
> social issues are a nice little diversion from what government is really all about: taking your money, borrowing against it, and spending it. The Republicans seem to waste a great deal of effort trying to fit the government into people's bedrooms, family life, and women's doctors offices for it to just be "a nice little diversion."
- lintiness 10y ago
  the democrats want to outlaw sodas and guns. it's all bullshit to fire up morons. do you really think there's a snowball's chance in hell of overturning roe v. wade? do you really believe republicans want to force gay people to convert to heterosexuality? if you do, you're an abject moron, exactly the type of person this kind of divisive diversionary nonsense is aimed at.
  - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
    I guess all those Senators saying just that, are probably muddying the issue for us abject morons.
    - lintiness 10y ago
      lawyer whores say all kinds of shit they don't believe in order to "win".
  - CelestialTeapot 10y ago
    The Democrats want to impose a "sin" tax on soda to try to nudge people from making themselves even more obese than they already are, in a futile attempt to bring down health care costs, without addressing the main problem, which neither side wants to confront (too much lobbyist money at stake). I would welcome sane legislation on gun control that would work. I doubt that anyone in Congress would have the courage to do what Australia did. It really doesn't seem worth engaging you any further, as you seem to be a fine exemplar of your closing statement in your argument.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - unethical_ban 10y ago
      >I doubt that anyone in Congress would have the courage to do what Australia did. I doubt anyone in Congress has such disrespect for the values many Americans hold in regard to firearms, and the validity many Americans still find in the 2nd amendment.
  - sctb 10y ago
    Please re-read the commenting guidelines. We ban accounts that repeatedly comment uncivilly and unsubstantively. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- bigtex 10y ago
  Planned Parenthood is not a woman's doctor office.
rayiner 10y ago
I don't see it that way. I know my taxes went up under Obama--not only do I not care, I'm not even sure how much they went up. Gay marriage being legalized, on the other hand--that was a big deal.
- jazzyk 10y ago
  Yes, gay marriage is a big step forward. But, in the meantime: National debt when Obama started (1/20/2009): $10.6T National debt now: $19.4T Almost doubled.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    It's a little hard to know where to start to respond to this. First, growth in the national debt under Obama has been comparable to that of the last 36 years of Republican presidencies. Obviously, you can't simply compare the raw numbers; depending on the metric you use, Obama is getting crushed by Reagan (who almost tripled the national debt), or is just outcompeting Bush. You can pick metrics in which Obama compares unfavorably to Bush and Reagan, or metrics in which he compares favorably, but from what I can tell, he's pretty much on par with every president for the last 36 years except for Clinton. Second, Obama isn't responsible for a big chunk of that debt growth: it simply represents a continuation of crisis policy from Bush's administration in response to the collapse of 2008. It also captures Bush's disastrous tax cuts, a policy that Republican-controlled legislatures have ensured Obama was stuck with. Third, the US GDP is ~17T. Our debt is just barely over 100% of GDP, within 10% of France, Canada, Singapore, and Belgium. As a percentage of GDP, it's not the highest its ever been, and the increase captures our response to the biggest financial catastrophe since the Great Depression. Fourth, seen through the lens of the GDP, it's clear that there's two bad things that can happen to the debt: our total debt can grow, and our GDP can shrink. Money spent on the recovery is, again, a huge factor in the increased debt. That money was spent in large part to prevent an even more disastrous contraction in the economy. And, indeed, despite a relatively anemic recovery, we're doing a hell of a lot better than Europe did. Finally, an important mitigating factor with our debt is the unique position we hold in the global financial system. Treasury yields remain at historic lows. The market seems unconcerned with the debt, and remains happy to finance us. Unsurprisingly, you can't really evaluate the financial picture of the US by comparing two simple dollar numbers.

CelestialTeapot 10y ago

> social issues are a nice little diversion from what government is really all about: taking your money, borrowing against it, and spending it. The Republicans seem to waste a great deal of effort trying to fit the government into people's bedrooms, family life, and women's doctors offices for it to just be "a nice little diversion."

lintiness 10y ago
the democrats want to outlaw sodas and guns. it's all bullshit to fire up morons. do you really think there's a snowball's chance in hell of overturning roe v. wade? do you really believe republicans want to force gay people to convert to heterosexuality? if you do, you're an abject moron, exactly the type of person this kind of divisive diversionary nonsense is aimed at.
- JoeAltmaier 10y ago
  I guess all those Senators saying just that, are probably muddying the issue for us abject morons.
  - lintiness 10y ago
    lawyer whores say all kinds of shit they don't believe in order to "win".
- CelestialTeapot 10y ago
  The Democrats want to impose a "sin" tax on soda to try to nudge people from making themselves even more obese than they already are, in a futile attempt to bring down health care costs, without addressing the main problem, which neither side wants to confront (too much lobbyist money at stake). I would welcome sane legislation on gun control that would work. I doubt that anyone in Congress would have the courage to do what Australia did. It really doesn't seem worth engaging you any further, as you seem to be a fine exemplar of your closing statement in your argument.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - unethical_ban 10y ago
    >I doubt that anyone in Congress would have the courage to do what Australia did. I doubt anyone in Congress has such disrespect for the values many Americans hold in regard to firearms, and the validity many Americans still find in the 2nd amendment.
- sctb 10y ago
  Please re-read the commenting guidelines. We ban accounts that repeatedly comment uncivilly and unsubstantively. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
bigtex 10y ago
Planned Parenthood is not a woman's doctor office.

rayiner 10y ago

I don't see it that way. I know my taxes went up under Obama--not only do I not care, I'm not even sure how much they went up. Gay marriage being legalized, on the other hand--that was a big deal.

jazzyk 10y ago
Yes, gay marriage is a big step forward. But, in the meantime: National debt when Obama started (1/20/2009): $10.6T National debt now: $19.4T Almost doubled.
- tptacek 10y ago
  It's a little hard to know where to start to respond to this. First, growth in the national debt under Obama has been comparable to that of the last 36 years of Republican presidencies. Obviously, you can't simply compare the raw numbers; depending on the metric you use, Obama is getting crushed by Reagan (who almost tripled the national debt), or is just outcompeting Bush. You can pick metrics in which Obama compares unfavorably to Bush and Reagan, or metrics in which he compares favorably, but from what I can tell, he's pretty much on par with every president for the last 36 years except for Clinton. Second, Obama isn't responsible for a big chunk of that debt growth: it simply represents a continuation of crisis policy from Bush's administration in response to the collapse of 2008. It also captures Bush's disastrous tax cuts, a policy that Republican-controlled legislatures have ensured Obama was stuck with. Third, the US GDP is ~17T. Our debt is just barely over 100% of GDP, within 10% of France, Canada, Singapore, and Belgium. As a percentage of GDP, it's not the highest its ever been, and the increase captures our response to the biggest financial catastrophe since the Great Depression. Fourth, seen through the lens of the GDP, it's clear that there's two bad things that can happen to the debt: our total debt can grow, and our GDP can shrink. Money spent on the recovery is, again, a huge factor in the increased debt. That money was spent in large part to prevent an even more disastrous contraction in the economy. And, indeed, despite a relatively anemic recovery, we're doing a hell of a lot better than Europe did. Finally, an important mitigating factor with our debt is the unique position we hold in the global financial system. Treasury yields remain at historic lows. The market seems unconcerned with the debt, and remains happy to finance us. Unsurprisingly, you can't really evaluate the financial picture of the US by comparing two simple dollar numbers.