[Kjorteo]

Simple: gain a surplus (just a matter gaining more income from taxes than spending from budgets and such) and do not use the extra to pay down the national debt.

[CKASlacker]

Psudo wrote:

I favor an educated, intelligent mind closed tightly on the best answer because it's the best answer than a mind open to compromises with a hundred mutually exclusive answers.

Sure, I dislike political parties and partisanship because they operate with party loyalty where their brains should be. The quality of ideas should be the ultimate authority, not party affiliation or popularity contests. But I reject the notion that the best answers reside in the center and are best determined by the application of compromise. The best answers reside wherever they reside, and are best determined by the application of rational consideration! Pluralistic democracy is great at finding such answers, so I support it.

Sorry to bring up an older post - but I thought this was really well written. You've laid out the best points of a pluralistic democracy, and the way is should work. All ideas should be tolerated, and at least be given the chance to be voiced, but reason provides the best sifter to sort through them and the best ones found. Very Jefferson ideas - well done Psudo.

Now, you've expressed reservations about Obama's ability to be the uniter across party lines, and thus forsake the change he went on about during his campaign. My head tends to agree with you -- it's hard to shake the fact that he is a politican, and will doubtlessly fall into some of those old traps. Still, I choose (for now) to be optimistic and go with my heart -- at least until his administration gives me reason to think otherwise.

[Psudo]

Exactly, Kjorteo!

CKASlacker, you're apologizing for taking the opportunity to publicly compliment me? Why in the world would I be upset about that? =]

[Zipperfish]

Psudo wrote:

The difference between the CBO and that right-wing blogger is one of definitions. Clinton had budget surpluses several years. The national debt did, in fact, increase every year during Clinton's administration. It's fine for the right-wing to assert that it's illogical for these two facts to be true at once, but based on existing, official definitions it is true.

It's kinda silly to argue the exact definitions, however, when it's still clear that there was far less deficit spending (and spending generally) under Clinton than under Bush. Whether or not he reached some arbitrary standard isn't as relevant as the fact that the budget was doing better during the Clinton years than for a decade before or after.

A better right-wing argument is that the legislature is in change of spending, and the Republicans under Speaker for the House Newt Gingrich held a majority of that legislature for 6 of Clinton's 8 years, including every "budget surplus" year. Better still would be the argument that having different parties in charge of the Executive and Legislature leads to better critical analysis of legislation before it's passed.

Agreed!

[Zipperfish]

Psudo wrote:

The difference between the CBO and that right-wing blogger is one of definitions. Clinton had budget surpluses several years. The national debt did, in fact, increase every year during Clinton's administration. It's fine for the right-wing to assert that it's illogical for these two facts to be true at once, but based on existing, official definitions it is true.

It's kinda silly to argue the exact definitions, however, when it's still clear that there was far less deficit spending (and spending generally) under Clinton than under Bush. Whether or not he reached some arbitrary standard isn't as relevant as the fact that the budget was doing better during the Clinton years than for a decade before or after.

A better right-wing argument is that the legislature is in change of spending, and the Republicans under Speaker for the House Newt Gingrich held a majority of that legislature for 6 of Clinton's 8 years, including every "budget surplus" year. Better still would be the argument that having different parties in charge of the Executive and Legislature leads to better critical analysis of legislation before it's passed.

Agreed!

[GenericHito]

When I read that Politicians promise to turn America into a Utopia, and then people not only believe them, but expect it to happen, It was like Morpheus revealing the matrix to me, and all of the sudden the interactions of the media, the public, and politicians wove together and formed an interlocking formula that provided an ultimate theory encompassing every major problem with American politics.

But people around here just seem to be talking about random crap, so yeah, whatever.

[Zipperfish]

Are you sure the red pill you took wasn't a hit of acid?

[GenericHito]

Sure sounds like it.

[Biblesmasher]

travior wrote:

I admit, he has a great speech writer

From what I hear, he's a great speech writer himself.