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https://prospect.org/article/republican ... ont-matter
Republicans Proved Deficits Don’t Matter
David Dayen
July 24, 2019
[. . .]

Of course, GOP officials are all too happy to performatively restrict spending on the very poor—applying work requirements to Medicaid, for example, or limiting states from maximizing access to food stamps. But these should rightly be seen as social and not fiscal policies, meant to reverse allegedly unfair handouts to people who don’t vote for them. The spending itself is a means to an end, and the aggregate level rises and falls depending on which party might benefit in elections.

Democrats should not be expected to play a similar game of demanding austerity depending on the White House’s occupant. Unlike Republicans they wouldn’t harm the economy for political gain. No, they do something far worse: Acting as responsible stewards, they seek to handcuff themselves in office by forwarding deficit reduction packages, sabotaging their own economies in the process. Both the Clinton and Obama administrations paid close attention to deficits, egged on by Republican legislatures but to some degree in on the game themselves.
[. . .]

What McConnell does engage in, like his Republican colleagues, is runaway spending as long as a Republican is president. The hypocrisy of the cries of deficit hysteria from the GOP under Obama is certainly galling. But we should heed the lessons available here. Fiscal policy works. The warnings against it have yet to come true. Democrats should not apply brakes to themselves on spending if they get the chance. And if Republicans try the same special pleading for austerity under the next Democratic president, well, that’s what nuking the filibuster is for.

Warren — who declined to launch her own presidential bid 2½ years ago despite intense efforts by progressives to draft her — even received a “full vetting” for the vice presidential slot by Clinton’s team and was interviewed at the candidate’s Whitehaven mansion in Washington, according to Bloomberg Businessweek.

Clinton “seriously weighed” Warren as a potential running mate, the report states, and top aide Philippe Reines wrote in a memo to his boss after their meeting: “If a crystal ball said she wouldn’t antagonize you for four years, it’s hard to argue she isn’t the most helpful for the next four months to get you elected.”

Asked whether she would have agreed to become Clinton’s No. 2 on the ticket, Warren responded: “Yes.”

During the 2016 campaign, Warren controversially opted not to back Clinton’s chief primary challenger, fellow liberal Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, and went on to endorse Clinton in June of that year after the former secretary of State had secured enough delegates to capture her party’s nomination. Clinton ultimately selected Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine as her running mate.

RocketMan » Fri Jul 26, 2019 3:28 am wrote:What is interesting, though, is to ponder on if Warren would have energized the Clinton campaign enough to put her over the finishing line.

Grizzly wrote:Nice bots...

seemslikeadream » Mon Jul 29, 2019 1:50 pm wrote:Impeachment proceedings have all ready started

Nadler does not need Pelosi’s permission

all the Democrats I know understand this

“We have to do this, whatever time frame there is and we’re doing it now,”

Jerry Nadler

With Sunday surge, nearly half of House Democrats back impeachment inquiry
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/ ... nt-1438519