How will having a republican house and senate help this country?

It is my belief that it will bring it to even more of a standstill than it already is and nothing will get done at all.

I believe they think that cutting government services to the disadvantaged, or cutting the budget for infrastructure improvements, or cutting spending on education will allow them to fund a tax cut for the rich.

They believe that if the rich have more money, they will hire more people, and the economy will improve. I don’t exactly know where this idea comes from. I’ve heard that at a certain point, the rich don’t spend any more.

Hmmmm. Maybe they’ll give the money away—set up foundations that provide aid to the disadvantaged and support for education (no one ever thinks the private sector should support bridge renovations). They’ll hire more people to provide charity to the disadvantaged, with most of the money going to hire the people and a lot less going to provide the actual help.

If you think the GOP has a clue, just take a look at the Montana GOP platform or the GOP candidate in Delaware.

They’ll remove all government support from the economy, save what the Fed can manage. They’ll try to slash entitlements to the bone, fire government workers, let unemployment benefits expire, let the states go bankrupt, and fiddle around with witch hunts and impeachment probes while the economy slides into a depression.

This will help the county by convincing voters that they should never, ever, let Republicans run the show again.

The GOP has no plan. They’re running on “taking our country back” from the Dems. All they do now-adays is demonize their opponents platforms by any means necessary, and then run on the exact opposite platform.

Also, they’re not going to retake the senate barring some huge turn around. The Dems will likely retain it with 51–55 seats.

The house is probably going to the GOP, but its going to be a close margin.

I am not yet convinced that Dems will lose the majority in the House and the Senate.

Republicans do their best when they control Congress but not the White House. Look at the Clinton Years.

So no plan then….. Is that the answer?

I don’t think anyone can help this country.

The only plan I have heard is tax cuts for the rich and repeal Obama’s health care bill. I’m not a fan of either idea.

Keep in mind the tax thing is is simply letting the Bush tax cuts expire. Obama wants to keep the cuts for people making under 250K. This isn’t adding a new tax. But the Republicans have actually said they will oppose the extension for the middle if the one for the wealthy isn’t extended too. That is fucked up.

A stalemate like that can sometimes help stablize a government (like when Clinton was President), but I don’t think that is a good idea at this moment. This is a time where we need to act.

As much as I would love to have Dems control both houses of Congress and the Presidency, the backlash was inevitable, and given the nature of mid-term elections, it’s not surprising to me at all what we’re seeing. I would argue, perhaps overly optimistically that though I would prefer Dems lose neither, it might in a perverse way, if the Dems lose the House and not the Senate (which is what I bet will happen), that it will force a fundamental shift in Republican strategy.

Here’s what I mean in a nutshell. When Dems had both houses and the Presidency, everything became their responsibility, and as such, it didn’t matter if Republican obstructionism caused the partisan tone and constant bickering and gridlock, the Dems had control, they could have (in the minds of the unwashed masses of the electorate) passed whatever they wanted. Anything they passed that anyone doesn’t like (or doesn’t see the full benefit of immediately), AND anything they DIDN’T pass which people wanted them to, will look like a failure on the part of the Dems, and will heighten the “throw the bums out” sentiment.

But what happens when Republicans have some skin in the game as it were? Well, if the Republicans actually do control part of Congress and things get worse, they’re screwed come 2012. What the Republicans will have to do IF they win control of at least one house of Congress is to show that they can get things done that the Dems can not, that would increase their electoral chances in 2012. If they win neither, then they need to redouble their efforts to obstruct Dems in any way they can.

Furthermore, with the way the investment community has taken off in the last week, if the stock market has made significant gains by the mid term elections, investors regard the idea of gridlock as a good thing, because what the investment community wants more than anything is certainty, and to them, certainty that NOTHING will get done is far better than fears that one party running everything might overextend their authority.

Here’s a relevant article: The Two Santa Clauses Theory.

Also: From what I can tell, they seem to believe that cutting a lot of services will “balance the budget and bring responsibility to Washington.” But I’m not sure how they hope to do that with less spending. The stimulus should have been larger (especially now, when the interest rate on federal borrowing is at historically low levels) but they refused to approve that much. Yet, after getting all deficit-hawk about the stimulus, they are now mocking the idea that it “didn’t work.” That’s like cutting the battery out of my car because it’s too expensive, and then criticizing me for not being able to get to work.

Based upon comparing what Republicans say to what they do, I’m guessing that the way they want to benefit the country (if “benefit” is the word) is to make the country ungovernable until they get back into office. (That’s what the government shutdown they want so much will help do.) Once in, they will take the country back from all those non-straight, non-white, non-Protestant, non-wealthy agenda-holders and consolidate the wealth even moreso in the hands of the fewer. I expect GDP to drop, rampant deflation and unemployment, and here’s the kicker: they will blame all of this on “Obama’s Recession and Spending,” mark my words.

So, how they will benefit the country really depends quite a bit on who you are. Otherwise, it probably won’t work well at all.

If you ignore the poor then poverty will cease to exist. If you waste taxpayer money on the poor then you are a Communist. And it’s un-American to tax the rich because they earned every penny they got. Besides, the richer the elite are, the more they invest, and that less to job creation and prosperity for all.

Republican rule also strengthens the moral fiber of our nation, as we have strayed from God under Democratic leadership, leading to a rise in homosexuality, teen pregnancy, and tooth decay.

The question sort of implies that one group of corrupt, narcissistic, ammoral politicians might be better than another.
As long as there is a voting majority that actually believes that any of these assholes can actually “do” anything worth a shit, then it does not make any difference in who holds the legislative majority.
Why does anybody think that a “politician”, the lowest form of civilized human, is so special?
The only thing that distinguishes them from you or me is that they can scrape up enough money to put together an ad campaign to persuade somebody to vote for them. No different than commercials on the Super Bowl.

I don’t quite get it. Republicans insist that government can not do anything to create jobs, then that we should vote for them because once they are in, they will create jobs?

Let’s see. Under Clinton, we added 23.1 million jobs. Under George W. Bush we added 3 million but then lost 8.5 million.

It seems Republicans are right about their not being able to create jobs. My take on it is if a guy drives my car into the ditch, don’t give him the keys again.

I can’t understand why a group that says government is no good, it can’t help create jobs, close the borders, protect the country, or deliver health care would run for office.

It seems that if the government is that bad they would want to stay as far away from it as possible. I say we take them at their word and vote for people who think that the government can be made to help its citizens.

You want to go a long way towards fixing the system…. make 1–3 new parties.

@tedd – Okay. Make 1–3 new parties, and add them to this stack of US political parties. I’ll wait here. ;)

And then people will still (mostly) vote for the Demmicans or the Republicrats for fear of splitting those coalitions and allowing the other side to gain power. For a third party (or fourth, or fifth…) to be successful in American politics, one of two things would have to occur. Either people lose confidence en masse in one of the Big Two and switch wholesale to another (rare, but it’s happened), and/or we move to instant runoff voting or parliamentary system.

@laureth No thats what I mean. I’m aware that we have a list of parties in our country, but only two are worth mentioning even. We’d be better off if we had something similar to like… the UK, where they have 3 major parties (conservatives, labor, liberals). We need 1–3 new parties that actually have some legitimate power. Otherwise its just the two we have name calling.

@tedd – These third+ parties you want, what would be their platforms? If you make them significantly to the left or to the right, they will (A) drain voters from the more moderate D or R party, as the Tea Party is drawing voters from the Republicans (and Greens tend to draw from Democrats). If enough people do that, great, you win, your two new parties are Greens and Republicans or Tea Party and Democrats or something like that. Still two.

The problem, however, with making new parties that fall along the edges of the bell curve in either direction is that most people seem to be at the center of the bell curve. Go too far and fewer voters will be attracted to radical platforms. And that does in the idea of people switching en masse.

And because of this, that’s why we gravitate to two major parties. If the Big Two were abolished and new ones invented from scratch in their place, I’m willing to bet that one would be center-rightish, and one would be center-leftish. I’m not sure how it would differ from what we have.

It sounds like you’re asking not for new parties, but for the whole system to change. Without system change, new parties will be invented and placed on the political third party dust heap in short order.

@laureth you are right, we would, again, end up with two centrist parties. What we really need to do is rethink the legislature and change it to a parliamentary system. Then you could have a number of parties compromising for seats in Parliament.

Right now, all it takes to destroy government is for one of the major parties to stop fulfilling its responsibilities, the Republicans are doing a stand up job of destroying whatever government that is left. The Tea Party is a bunch of wackos but they are at least willing to do the job while main stream Republicans sit in the corner and pout about loosing power, I am completely disgusted with them even more than I am with the Democrats.

@Ron_C – If it makes you feel better, we have coalitions. It’s just that the coalitions get together and vote for the Demmicans or Republicrats that most resemble what they’d like to see in government, rather than the coalition happening in the legislature.

People act like the Ds and the Rs are are a solid front, but they’re not. They’re big flags that lots of different views rally around.