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Reexamining GOP obstruction in the obama era

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Digger

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During Obama's presidency, the GOP shut down the government several times. Everyone agrees that this harmed the economy. But Republicans at the time argued that the issues they were being stubborn on were so important for the long term health of the economy that it justified the short term damage.

What were these issues? They wanted to repeal and replace Obamacare, they wanted to reduce the deficit. And they wanted to extend Bush's tax cuts for rich people.

What can we learn from their actions upon taking power in 2017 about the sincerity of their arguments? Well, they didn't repeal and replace Obamacare. They didn't reduce the deficit. They did give another huge stinking tax cut to rich people.

I conclude from this that the GOP doesn't really care about deficits and Obamacare. They harmed the economy for disingenuous reasons.

Why did they do it? Maybe they think tax cuts for rich people are so good for the economy in the long term that it's worth hurting the economy in the short term to get them.

But I posit another explanation. Instead of good but stupid, maybe they're evil but smart. McConnell let the truth slip when he said his highest priority was to deny obama a second term. Not create jobs, not help the economy. Hurt obama.

The tax cuts for the rich increased the deficit. Repeated shutdowns slowed the recovery. The GOP caused these things, and then complained that "Obama's deficit" was to big and "obama's recovery" was too slow.
 
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Politicians are hypocrites.
 

Someone somewhere once said, "Elections have consequences". Obama seemed to forget that in his second term after Republicans took over one thousand seats from Democrats, gaining both the House and the Senate and yet the left became the resistance against what voters wanted. And yet Obama seemed to forget that elections have consequences and tried his best to thwart what Americans wanted during his second term. Even today voters have voted in a Republican president and a Republican Senate, and yet Democrats have formed the resistance, while only controlling 1/3 of the government. I'll give you Republican obstruction from 2009-2014 but ever since January 2015, it has been constant Democratic obstruction, which has lasted five years now.
 

Now, this is whataboutism! Only one sentence fragment addresses my point and that is only to agree with it. The rest of your post is just distracting from the issue.

So you've given me Republican obstruction from 2009 - 2014. Do you have any response to the fact that once they had a chance to govern from 2017-2019, they didn't do the things that they claimed were so important as to require shutting down the government to demand? Repealing and replacing Obamacare, and reducing the deficit. They never did it.
 
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LOL. So you make a whataboutism post and then when I respond you claim that I am guilty of whataboutism.
 
Moderate Right said:
LOL. So you make a whataboutism post and then when I respond you claim that I am guilty of whataboutism.
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What are you talking about? I made the OP. I set the subject. You tried to change it.

Please make your next post about the subject of this thread.

We're talking about the disconnect between the GOPs stated reasons for repeatedly shutting down the government and their actions when they had a chance to govern.
 

Your OP itself was a whataboutism!
 
The fact that in ten years the GOP never came up with a “replace” was the first clue that the “repeal-and-replace” slogan wasn’t very serious.
 
Moderate Right said:
Your OP itself was a whataboutism!
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Oi vey. Sigh. OK, here we go.

Whataboutism - Wikipedia

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Whataboutism, also known as whataboutery, is a variant of the tu quoque logical fallacy that attempts to discredit an opponent's position by charging them with hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving their argument.

it is a word that was coined to describe the frequent use of a rhetorical diversion by Soviet apologists and dictators, who would counter charges of their oppression, "massacres, gulags, and forced deportations" by invoking American slavery, racism, lynchings, etc.[10] It has been adopted by other politicians and countries.
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My OP was not a whataboutism, because I was not attempting to draw attention away from someone attempting to discuss something else. So how about your next post directly addresses my argument?
 

"Everyone agrees that it hurt the economy"... uh, no they don't. That was the big scare tactic of the Democrats trying to fear monger their way into getting what they want, but it didn't actually happen. Everyone got paid, the majority of the government wasn't even sent home, and life went on.

In fact, it might have even helped the economy... I know here in the DC metro area it was far easier for private commuters to get to work, and for private trucks to get where they were going.

The same held true last year:

The government shutdown was expected to hurt the economy. It didn’t. - The Boston Globe
 

Oh, for ****'s sake.

2013 United States federal government shutdown - Wikipedia

Small businesses faced delays in receiving loans from the Small Business Administration. Many of these companies needed to turn to alternative funding sources that charged much higher interest rates.

With many of these regulators furloughed, importers and exporters experienced delays. For instance, furloughs at the Environmental Protection Agency resulted in a halt to all imports of pesticides to the United States. Imports of lumber and steel were also delayed as were exports of semiconductor manufacturing equipment.[145] Airbus was unable to deliver new airplanes to the airlines JetBlue and US Airways because Federal Aviation Administration personnel who certify airplanes were furloughed.
 

Oh FFS, saying that some businesses were inconvenienced by the Shutdown is not the same thing as the economy being hurt by the shutdown. :roll:

In fact, Q4 of 2013, in which the show shutdown took pace, saw economic growth of 3.2%, same as the prior quarter, and the average growth of the 3 subsequent quarters was 3.1%.

... devastating... :roll:
 

Your first paragraph is just so ridiculous all that I can do is underline it. Just look at yourself for a minute. Charging small businesses higher interest rates doesn't hurt the economy. It's hard for me to take you seriously.

Your second paragraph is purely a correlative argument and warrants no further response. In your parlance, saying that the economy grew during the shutdown is not the same thing as the shutdown didn't hurt the economy.
 

Doubt that everyone agrees with your rhetoric but we do agree that you have a very selective memory ignoring that Congress was controlled by Democrats from January 2007 to January 2011 and during Obama's first two years he got exactly what he wanted. The Republicans did not stop anything Obama wanted and still we got the worst recovery in modern American history from a major recession

Obama is out of office so keep trying to prop up an Administration that lost the House in 10-12-14-16 and the Senate in 14-16 and a President in 2012 who is the only re-elected President in history to get fewer votes than his original election, 4 million of them
 

Me : the GOP repeatedly shut down the government, harming the economy. They said that they wanted to repeal and replace Obamacare and reduce the deficit, but when they came into power they didnt repeal or replace, and they ballooned the deficit.

You : but obama...

Just another whatabout. You didn't even mention the Republicans except ro claim that they did not stop anything obama wanted, which is... wow. And you're accusing me of having a selective memory.
 
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Show us the results as to how the GOP shutting down the gov't hurt the economy? I guess you are still living in that liberal fantasy world where Obama is still President and his results really weren't those that cost him the House in 10-12-14-16 then the Senate in 14-16? you obviously have a desire to prop up the Obama Administration in spite of the poor results including those at the ballot box

I am sure Obama loves people like you but your post and OP is irrelevant today
 
ITT conservatives do everything they can think of to avoid the subject of why the GOP shut down the government.
 
As soon as Trump got in the White House, the purse strings loosened up. Then the big tax giveaway.

No doubt about it: GOP "concerns" over deficits only appear when a Democrat is in the White House.

 

Already showed you on post 11. Raising interest rates on small businesses hurts the economy. Preventing farmers and manufacturers from importing pesticides and raw materials hurts the economy.

The rest of your post is just repeating yourself, trying to derail this conversation and make it about obama, which it is not.
 

Presidents don't raise interest rates nor does Congress, We are done, you aren't worth the effort
 
Conservative said:
Presidents don't raise interest rates nor does Congress, We are done, you aren't worth the effort
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Oh come on. You're not gonna leave before you address the point of the thread, are you? We're just about finished getting through all of your deflections.

The small business administration provides low interest loans to small businesses, in order to, you know, help the economy. The government shutdowns required small businesses to find alternate financing at higher interest rates. It's all there in the link you clearly didn't bother to read.

Quite annoying of you, to demand evidence and then not look at it.
 

None of what you post addressed the reality that the President nor the Congress sets interest rates!!!
 
Conservative said:
None of what you post addressed the reality that the President nor the Congress sets interest rates!!!
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There was no economic reason paramount of Fed standard to lower the funds rate. The only reason was the Trump twitter. Or, you tell me what the economic reason that was not a step out of Fed guideline boundaries.
 
bluesmoke said:
There was no economic reason paramount of Fed standard to lower the funds rate. The only reason was the Trump twitter. Or, you tell me what the economic reason that was not a step out of Fed guideline boundaries.
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The charge was made and the OP talks about the GOP being obstructionists with Obama! Neither Congress nor the president controls interest rates that is reality

Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk
 
Conservative said:
None of what you post addressed the reality that the President nor the Congress sets interest rates!!!
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Um, yes. The President and Congress set interest rates for small businesses through the small business administration. When the government shut down, those subsidized loans were not available, and the businesses had to take out higher interest loans instead. Why is this so hard to get through to you?
 
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