Reason Writers Around Town: Peter Suderman Talks Deficit Politics, Entitlements, and the Republican Agenda With TPM's Brian Beutler

Do Americans hate taxes more than they love entitlements? Do Republicans have an actual governing agenda? Why are progressives so disappointed with Obama? At Bloggingheads, Reason Associate Editor Peter Suderman and Talking Points Memo reporter Brian Beutler discuss these questions and more. Approximately one hour.

Comments

[hmm]

All fiscal conservatives have an obligation to be Democrats?

Seriously? At least you noted the gridlock of what I'm sure he was using to justify is "30 year" statement. He seems like he might not be a complete retard if he wasn't drinking the blue koolaid.

Then again it is TPM.

[B]

Discussing the Republican agenda with Brian Beutler? I eagerly await a discussion of the Torah with David Duke next.

[B]

"All fiscal conservatives have an obligation to be Democrats?"

But of course. Once you look past the fact that Obama and the Democrats have spent more in the past year and a half than Bush did for probably the entirety of his last term, it all becomes so obvious.

Seriously, I have nuts in my shit that can come up with more cogent arguments than Brian "I rate an 11 on a 1-10 scale of partisan hackery" Beutler.

[B]

And why the hell does it seem that the most prominent left wing bloggers appear to be an age that would place them in elementary school during the Clinton Administration?

[Jason]

Because they were?

[B]

Boy you're clever, aren't you? Oh, wait...

[Julian Sanchez]

Pretty sure Brian is actually older than Peter.

[Old Bull Lee]

I turned it off when he said something about how all these dumb Americans believe Obama raised their taxes, when "of course that isn't true."

I actually like these bloggingheads discussion things in concept, but the non-Reason participant often turns out to be a fucking waste.

[Tman]

What a hack.

"We shouldn't use the stimulus funds for unemployment benefits because the stimulus is supposed to be used for jobs."

Except the stimulus hasn't created any jobs dummy.

"Unemployed people not having any money is a no-win situation for anyone."

Yeah! We should just give everyone more money, that will solve everything! Hey! Let's make a stimulus program for unemployment benefits!

This entire interview is an example of how intellectually vapid the left has become.

[Joshua Corning]

How can one actually look at the employment figures and still think that the stimulus creates jobs is beyond me.

i is like these people have no skills in measuring outcomes. they have a model and no matter what the real world produces the model will always work.

model says government spending will create jobs. 2 years pass and no jobs materialize well we must not be spending enough to over come some magical job eating monster out there...lets spend more money.

[Joshua Corning]

Wacthing this i am wondering if we are entering a time of suicidal politiions. Essentially Bush had to know that his policies at least int he last 3 years of his presidancy would result in republican loses. And now we have obama and the Democrat congress pushing policies that will make them lose seats in November.

What is odd is that this is creating defacto term limits at least for congressmen in purple districts and congressmen who have not been there for very long.

Also the other thing is the result unlike as i always fantasized about is not a libertarian push but a statist one.

[Joshua Corning]

"They think that a sunami of regulations will destroy the economy or is this a ploy?"

Essentially the argument is do Businessmen ever care about the broader world out side their business. The answer is yes they do. These people have children they have employees then have friends they are in churches they are members of the community. The default position of democrats is that businessmen are Freidmen automatons and that is simply not true. Just because you open a Pizza chain does not suddenly take your humanity away. And just because you are a progressive does not make you suddenly more humane and it definitely does not make better at fixing an ailing economy.

When Businessmen tell you they are not putting money into the economy they are not hiring and they are not spending money to invest in new buissness idea it is not a ploy to drum up fear about economic regulations. The state of the economy proves this. They are scared shitless and do not trust the future and so they are waiting until the Obama plan either sets (rather then a new and improved regulation and tax every month) so they can actaully look at how much all this shit will cost or is removed.

It is not a question of if they think this will hurt the economy....they are not spending their money so obviously they do think this. The question is does this actually hurt the economy?

and the answer is go look at the unemployment figures.

[christian louboutin platform p]

discount christian louboutin pumps

Nike Mercurial Vapor Superfly II FG

[christian louboutin platform p]

Nike Mercurial Vapor Superfly V

Nike Mercurial Vapor Superfly II FG cleats