Joe Biden backs away from a public option.

Phoenixmgs

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Public healthcare (or Medicaid for all) was never a thing that was gonna happen. If you want stuff like this to happen, you have to vote out both parties and stop acting like one party are the "good guys" thinking that "we" won the election when your team wins. They're not your team and both "teams" are, in fact, the same exact team. Fighting over public healthcare isn't the real fight, it's fighting to get healthcare costs in line with the rest of the developed nations. The public option isn't probably feasible budget-wise with our current system because of how overpriced healthcare is in the US and the fact that we NEED to spend $1.5 trillion on new fighter jets, priorities and all. You gotta keep the 1% happy.

Lastly, "they" are really good at getting people to fight over shit that doesn't really matter (like say gay marriage or retarded ass rigged elections). People that associate with either political party should've been storming the Capitol together over healthcare during a fucking pandemic vs some conspiracy theory rigged election bullshit.

The American public...


And where the people say they want universal healthcare, and then oppose it when anyone tries it because it's socialism.
Stole this from someone here awhile back, I forget what thread.

 
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Thaluikhain

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Public healthcare (or Medicaid for all) was never a thing that was gonna happen. If you want stuff like this to happen, you have to vote out both parties and stop acting like one party are the "good guys" thinking that "we" won the election when your team wins. They're not your team and both "teams" are, in fact, the same exact team.
Both teams failing the US/world quite terribly do not mean their the same exact team. When one team is consistently, if marginally, less evil than the other, people living in that margin have reason to prefer them, or perhaps to fear them less. The bar was recently lowered to the extent that merely not having a overtly fascist takeover is doing relatively well.

You're correct that if things continue as they do, you aren't going to see substantial changes, but I don't see things improving any time soon.
 
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crimson5pheonix

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The CBO doesn't make that determination. It's why the parliamentarian position exists.
And the parliamentarian gave their opinion. It was a stupid ass opinion, but apparently ironclad (it's not actually, it can be overridden and if the Dems were really serious about making a point, sacked).

EDIT: Also you're just plain wrong, that is in fact the CBO's job.
 

Gergar12

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If we don't do the right thing on minimum wage. 30 million Americans will not get a raise and will lose out on 90 billion dollars to executives, and shareholders.
Behind Medicare for all and Green New Deal, this is the third most important progressive objective, and arguably more important than free college.

Full disclosure I don't benefit from this, I have stocks in multiple large companies like the FANG companies Facebook, Apple, Google for example. (Mainly because companies don't offer pensions, and would rather do 401ks) I also with my college degree will likely earn more than this, I benefit from almost every progressive objective other than this, but this is important. This other than Biden's Green New Deal lite will be the most important thing he does. So fight!!!
 

Phoenixmgs

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Both teams failing the US/world quite terribly do not mean their the same exact team. When one team is consistently, if marginally, less evil than the other, people living in that margin have reason to prefer them, or perhaps to fear them less. The bar was recently lowered to the extent that merely not having a overtly fascist takeover is doing relatively well.

You're correct that if things continue as they do, you aren't going to see substantial changes, but I don't see things improving any time soon.
It's just that the republicans are far more overt about being evil. Both parties are "bad guys". You shouldn't vote for one bad guy because he's slightly less bad than the other bad guy. America isn't literally a 2-party system, the people have made it such, there's other candidates you can vote for.
 

Gergar12

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This is insanity Kyrsten Sinema is literally stopping the equality act. On what planet am I living on where; the first LGBTQ senator who forced Mike Pence to do her pledge on not a bible but a law book is stopping the fucking act to stop discrimination against her own people. I normally don't care about social issues, but this is batshit insanity Karen bullshit.
 
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Thaluikhain

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It's just that the republicans are far more overt about being evil. Both parties are "bad guys". You shouldn't vote for one bad guy because he's slightly less bad than the other bad guy. America isn't literally a 2-party system, the people have made it such, there's other candidates you can vote for.
Disagree there. In theory, the US isn't a 2 party system, but do you seriously expect a third party to get anywhere next election? The one after that?

I agree that you absolutely shouldn't be in the position of having to choose one bad party over another, but that's not to say it's not the case.
 

Silvanus

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Right, forgot who I was talking to. Continue on, merry arguer! Argue for arguments sake!
A reminder that you were the one who reverted to aggression towards me first, necessitating this whole sordid tangent.

Imagine: two socialists can, in fact, disagree on something without one of them being a filthy counter-revolutionary.
 

Eacaraxe

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We'll have to see if/when the proposal is put forward, but suffice it to say that if that's the route they take, it won't remotely be resembling what's in the published plan (including the one published on Monday, post-election).
Neither are "overflow facilities for unaccompanied minors", "$1400+$600=$2000", retreating from the minimum wage hike that's been fought for so long it's no longer even a living wage for most Americans, "rejoining" the toothless and non-binding environmental "treaty" that's no longer sufficient to avert climate disaster and pledging an amount of funding that's not even sufficient to meet US commitment to it and calling it a day, nor "back to school and work before the vaccine has been distributed no matter the cost". Yet, here we are, and that's just the shit I can name off the top of my head before I've even had my morning coffee that comprised the supposed top five campaign issues of 2020.

Garbage in, garbage out.
 

Phoenixmgs

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Disagree there. In theory, the US isn't a 2 party system, but do you seriously expect a third party to get anywhere next election? The one after that?

I agree that you absolutely shouldn't be in the position of having to choose one bad party over another, but that's not to say it's not the case.
That's the thing, people vote for the 2 parties because they don't think anyone else can win (+ the other people don't have millions to throw at ads either) so they vote for against their "worst nightmare". You can vote for other people though, and if everyone did that (just like everyone does for the 2 parties), then other candidates can win. I did actually do a quick lookup of the candidates and if you're just running on the platform that your opponent sucks, then I'm not voting for you. That was literally every democrat and republican candidate page I went to when I was voting for all the different races, thus I voted for none of them.
 

Silvanus

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[...] retreating from the minimum wage hike that's been fought for so long it's no longer even a living wage for most Americans, "rejoining" the toothless and non-binding environmental "treaty" that's no longer sufficient to avert climate disaster and pledging an amount of funding that's not even sufficient to meet US commitment to it and calling it a day [...]
These two are rather premature. We've had a slew of executive orders on the climate crisis, but no big budgetary commitments-- that's because budget is down to the legislature, he can't do it via EO. The minimum wage hike hasn't been dropped; all we know is that Republicans are negotiating against. They haven't conceded.

These things could go south. Biden has a shitty record (the "overflow facilities" being particularly fucking egregious) and I wouldn't be terribly surprised if they did go south. But they haven't yet.
 

Silvanus

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That's the thing, people vote for the 2 parties because they don't think anyone else can win (+ the other people don't have millions to throw at ads either) so they vote for against their "worst nightmare". You can vote for other people though, and if everyone did that (just like everyone does for the 2 parties), then other candidates can win.
The two-party system in the US chokes out any third candidate, and I have zero doubt that the ballot-box support of the Democrats & Republicans is artificially inflated by those who feel they have no choice but to vote against the one they like least.

But even if every person who felt that way voted for a third-party candidate of their choice, I highly doubt it would get remotely close to the Democrats' or Republicans' levels of support. There's a significant minority of genuine progressives in the US, who are currently severely underrepresented... but nowhere near, say, 30%. A significant electoral bloc, but not anywhere near enough to win alone.

Of course, this means the sensible thing for the Democrats to do is to shift left. The "centre" ground is already over-occupied, whereas the progressive side of the country has no proper political home. It would be electorally advantageous for them to make overtures in that direction.
 

crimson5pheonix

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A reminder that you were the one who reverted to aggression towards me first, necessitating this whole sordid tangent.

Imagine: two socialists can, in fact, disagree on something without one of them being a filthy counter-revolutionary.
You're the one who picked a fight over literally nothing. I don't even know what you're disagreeing with me about anymore because you're just non-fascist Houseman.

And this happens literally every time, you come in and echo centrist talking points for pages to stir up a fight, and then when policies are restated you're suddenly agreeing with everything. Go away, you're not worth talking to on any serious level.
 

Silvanus

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You're the one who picked a fight over literally nothing. I don't even know what you're disagreeing with me about anymore because you're just non-fascist Houseman.

And this happens literally every time, you come in and echo centrist talking points for pages to stir up a fight, and then when policies are restated you're suddenly agreeing with everything.
This a ludicrous rewrite.

I didn't disagree on policies, so I don't rightly know why you see this as "sudden". I stated that the reasons being given in this thread to believe they've been written off are shallow; essentially stating that there's still a chance the public option could still come to pass. But you don't brook any disagreement, whether it's on policy or not; if someone's not on the same page as you about anything, even the probability that something we both want will come to pass, you'll hallucinate drastic policy disagreements that were never fucking in any of the posts.
 

crimson5pheonix

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This a ludicrous rewrite.

I didn't disagree on policies, so I don't rightly know why you see this as "sudden". I stated that the reasons being given in this thread to believe they've been written off are shallow; essentially stating that there's still a chance the public option could still come to pass. But you don't brook any disagreement, whether it's on policy or not; if someone's not on the same page as you about anything, even the probability that something we both want will come to pass, you'll hallucinate drastic policy disagreements that were never fucking in any of the posts.
They were at the start. And to prove my point further.

About the Democrats being untrustworthy? Yeah, I've been on the same page about that for quite a few years.
Literally, literally, literally, the whole position is that we can't trust Democrats to follow through on their campaign promises because they're untrustworthy, and every single fucking time you come in and say that's wrong and we can't do that even though YOU AGREE WITH IT.

You are literally the worst person to talk to. I don't agree with everything the people I respect say either, you're just the only one that makes it into an obnoxious tedious mess of doublespeak, contradiction, nitpicking, and bullshit. Pick a position and stick with it for the love of god. Or better yet, just never talk to me again. Go away. Shoo. Begone.
 

Avnger

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Literally, literally, literally, the whole position is that we can't trust Democrats to follow through on their campaign promises because they're untrustworthy, and every single fucking time you come in and say that's wrong and we can't do that even though YOU AGREE WITH IT.

You are literally the worst person to talk to. I don't agree with everything the people I respect say either, you're just the only one that makes it into an obnoxious tedious mess of doublespeak, contradiction, nitpicking, and bullshit. Pick a position and stick with it for the love of god. Or better yet, just never talk to me again. Go away. Shoo. Begone.
Maybe it only seems like this because you have a fundamentalist black/white view of the world?
 

crimson5pheonix

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Maybe it only seems like this because you have a fundamentalist black/white view of the world?
I doubt that since I can have perfectly civil conversations with people who fundamentally disagree with me, just not Silvanus.
 

Phoenixmgs

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The two-party system in the US chokes out any third candidate, and I have zero doubt that the ballot-box support of the Democrats & Republicans is artificially inflated by those who feel they have no choice but to vote against the one they like least.

But even if every person who felt that way voted for a third-party candidate of their choice, I highly doubt it would get remotely close to the Democrats' or Republicans' levels of support. There's a significant minority of genuine progressives in the US, who are currently severely underrepresented... but nowhere near, say, 30%. A significant electoral bloc, but not anywhere near enough to win alone.

Of course, this means the sensible thing for the Democrats to do is to shift left. The "centre" ground is already over-occupied, whereas the progressive side of the country has no proper political home. It would be electorally advantageous for them to make overtures in that direction.
How many people are actually real democrats or republicans though? If you take the labels off and just looked at what they've done in the past or their current platform, I bet most people wouldn't associate with either party. The republicans screw over most of their voters so do the democrats. All my friends that are left leaning and vote democratic don't really like many democrats. I also think conservative and progressive labels are stupid. I'm a fan whatever policy makes the most sense, I don't care if it's conservative or not. Nuclear power is way better (and greener) than the green energy stuff for example; is that conservative or progressive? What does it even matter? I guess I'm not conservative just based on the fact there's probably better ideas now than past ideas so why stick to past ideas that just aren't the best ideas anymore? Plus conservative values never made America great, it was stuff like slavery (free labor) or WWII where every country but the US basically had to rebuild, every time the US was great, we kinda cheated basically.
 
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Silvanus

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You are literally the worst person to talk to. I don't agree with everything the people I respect say either, you're just the only one that makes it into an obnoxious tedious mess of doublespeak, contradiction, nitpicking, and bullshit. Pick a position and stick with it for the love of god. Or better yet, just never talk to me again. Go away. Shoo. Begone.
I've had the same position since the fucking start. You've hallucinated other political positions and projected them onto me, because you seemingly can't comprehend that disagreement on something like probability can come from a place that isn't despicable centrist heresy.

And then, when I'm forced to disown a position I never advocated in the first place, that's "nitpicking". Okay, what-the-fuck-ever.