• afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            No it isn’t. The entire government is running on a fake budget pretty much indefinitely because Congress won’t raise taxes, or reign in spending. The bare minimum would be a balanced budget, only spending what they had with the sole exception being a massive temporary crisis.

            I deal with budgets as part of my job. When a project goes over I have to answer to the CEO.

            • onestop@lemmy.ml
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              1 year ago

              but we’re talking about the politicians, it takes work to balance a budget, they are not doing it, as you said, because… wait for it… they are doing the bare minimum. that’s what i said. I don’t disagree with you, we’re actually on the same page. if they would look at the government as a company, like you do, and the president as the CEO, it would be different. but it’s every man for himself out there

  • Copernican@lemmy.world
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    I don’t think people get that this difference makes a difference. As a millennial going through college during the GW Bush years, there was at least a Republican party that cared about America, cared about non political government institutions and the service those members participate in, etc. Since the tea party that shit changed. And I don’t think it’s hard to believe Mitt Romney actually cares about this country and means what he says on this thing. I feel disgusted defending Romney, but I kind of miss it when it was guys like Romney were the political opponents in power and not these MAGA folks hellbent on destroying democracy and politicizing the institutions critical to America.

    • crashfrog@lemm.ee
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      I mean, I was going through college when GW Bush was elected, and here’s what I remember:

      1. Everyone lying about GW Bush being the “first Spanish-speaking President” (he spoke no Spanish at all), the first of many lies meant to cover up his manifest incompetence and intellectual incapability

      2. Republicans shutting the government down for weeks at a time

      3. A maniac, entirely fictitious scandal invented solely to hamper Al Gore’s election prospects (the White House phones scandal)

      What was different about that day’s Republican Party than today’s? We knew less about it, was all.

      • Copernican@lemmy.world
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        The thing that I dont think a lot of people like to recognize is that GW Bush had both some of the highest and lowest approval ratings. For months immediately after his approval rating was like 90 percent. Dems are also responsible for going to war then, even if they weren’t the party in control.

        But the thing is republicans did hold institutions, agencies, and administrative government orgs in higher esteem and weren’t trying to destroy and purge. That’s very different than trump. There’s a difference between Mitt Romneys of the. GOP and the Jim Jordans who have never passed their own legislation and instead only focus on dismantling government and going on witch hunts.

        I think the other thing you need to look at is how other elected officials speak about working with him. There’s what you say in the public light, and then there’s the work that actually gets done.

        Also, didn’t Romney kind of quietly champion universal healthcare in MA? And despite his own views, accept state Supreme Court rulings to provide gay marriage licenses? This guy actually cared about governing.

        • hydrospanner@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I think that MAGA-ism has led to a dangerous amount of rose tinted glasses with regard to the pre-Trump GOP. Even the pre-Tea Party GOP (which was the real start of this latest flavor of rot)…

          buuuuuuut

          You do make a very good point in the difference between a Romney and a Jordan.

          The Romneys of the world may indeed want small government, hell some of them may only want a smaller government…but they still want some degree of government, and by extension, they’re still interested in governing. That is: doing their job of steering the nation toward some sort of goal that they feel is a worthwhile betterment of the country.

          I may not agree with their goals or the ways they try to get there, but they do in fact have a goal and part of that end goal includes an intact, functioning country with an intact, functioning government.

          The Jordans, however, have a fundamentally incompatible end goal: they don’t just want small government, they want no government. Any level of government would serve as a check on their power to enforce their ideals, so their constant goal is simply to dismantle any bit of the government they can.

          So they literally use their position as a chosen caretaker for the government as a platform to destroy the very thing they’re supposed to be managing.

      • Beetschnapps@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Also 2 unnecessary wars. Iraq causing the US to lose focus in Afghanistan. Republicans steered the Medicare part D BS and Bush signed it. The economy melting down then they blamed Obama. Then they questioned Obama’s citizenship. Before that was Reagan racking up debt, and raising taxes all while “states rights” was used as cover for institutional racism.

        Republicans have always been dog shit.

        • Serinus@lemmy.world
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          Yes, but they never would have sold us out completely to China or Russia. Their goals were power and grift, but they weren’t willing to destroy the country to do so.

          As bad as they were, Trump is likely worse.

          • spaceghoti@lemmy.one
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            It’s a progression, though. They turned up the heat slowly so people wouldn’t notice how they’re being boiled alive. Romney isn’t a Tea Party/MAGAt like the rest, but he had no problem catering to them during his 2012 bid for the Presidency and he was part of the establishment that paved the way for the extremists. He can afford to distance himself now that he’s retiring, but he didn’t listen when we warned about the rise of extremism in his party. It’s too late to earn our respect for acknowledging it now.

          • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
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            they never would have sold us out completely to China or Russia

            Only because China and Russia weren’t shopping for US politicians at the time. For decades now Republicans have been about catering to the wishes of the wealthy - their basic treasonous natures were just masked by the fact that their wealthy donors used to be all-American.

        • crashfrog@lemm.ee
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          I don’t think you can really argue that the war in Afghanistan was “unnecessary.” We were attacked by terrorists from that country, remember?

          We were never going to let OBL do 9/11 and then just walk away.

          • Beetschnapps@lemmy.world
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            Except we did.

            When Bin Laden was cornered in caves in Afghanistan further resources to go after him were denied and sent to Iraq instead. There’s a reason OBL was killed in Pakistan during an entirely different presidential administration.

  • Blackout@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    “But not Biden so probably Trump but I will have my fingers crossed when I be a hypocrite and Jebus will forgive me.” - Rich white guy

      • speff@disc.0x-ia.moe
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        This thread is the epitome of low information D voters parroting the R=bad line. Romney was one of that last reasonable republicans left.

        • DriftingDeep@lemm.ee
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          It seems people love drawing lines in the sand, just to vilify those who step over, even momentarily. It’s the middle-ground politicians on both sides that are actually pushing worthwhile legislation.

          For example, nationwide stimulus checks during Covid: a Romney initiative. But he has an R by his name, so I guess nothing he does matters. “It wasn’t enough”, “it was just for optics,” etc. The right absolutely moves goalposts, but that doesn’t mean supporters on the left are innocent of doing the exact same thing.

  • PorradaVFR@lemmy.world
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    Yeah…. His usual ethical-adjacent stance. He won’t support the awful but the moderately better are just fine. The pinnacle of GOP integrity is still pathetic.

            • onestop@lemmy.ml
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              1 year ago

              serious question, without naming any politicians, do you think any of the candidates is going to do a good job, from any party, I don’t want to put you in the spot so just yes or no is fine.

              • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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                It takes two to come to an agreement but only one to start a fight. If one party is dedicated to stopping all progress, the other can only govern if it has a super majority.

                • onestop@lemmy.ml
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                  good as in being able to balance the budget while keeping inflation low and helping people, all people, earn a living wage, fight for education so we can start exporting engineers and doctors who get money abroad and spend it in the US, instead of importing them, make healthcare care and homes affordable. Last president who balanced the budget was Clinton, I believe, and home costs have been going through the roof after the pandemic. Engineers and doctors are coming from Asia. The military is the last good thing but the cost is very high.

                  But I think I agree with you, expectations is what drives the votes.

              • TWeaK@lemm.ee
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                1 year ago

                Doing a good job? Debateable. Not being evil? Some of them, but very few on the Republican side.

  • Th4tGuyII@kbin.social
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    It’s genuinely surprising how low the bar is for a Republican to be considered ethical - refusing to vote in the guy who literally tried to pull a coup on your country shouldn’t even be an ethical stance, it should be the stance of literally everyone

    • psmgx@lemmy.world
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      But… But… Trans people

      Seriously tho G W Bush ran on Gays are getting married oh no! And rode that to state and local wins even before 9/11 happened

    • assplode@kbin.social
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      Right??

      Mittens sucks out loud, but I have to give it to him: he’s had some ethical stances on things.

        • chaogomu@kbin.social
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          He flat out says;

          “the others that are running are acceptable to me and I’d be happy to vote for them,”

            • chaogomu@kbin.social
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              He also says that he supports “some” of the Democrats running for president. So you know, he wants spoiler candidates to help DeSantis win.

        • mateomaui@reddthat.com
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          Could be that if he mentions all three, it’s implied he’d choose Nicki Haley and that would just set him up for binders full of women jokes.

  • Rapidcreek@reddthat.com
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    The arc of Mitt Romney’s universe is long and flexes back and forth, but it bends towards sanity

  • spider@lemmy.nz
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    Sen. Mitt Romney Says He Would Vote For ‘Virtually’ Anybody Other Than Trump or Ramaswamy

    Remember, politicians are often masters at parsing their words; there’s a big difference between “would” and “will”.

    Edit: Also remember Romney was a chronic flip-flopper; don’t expect that to change.

    • Copernican@lemmy.world
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      Romney isn’t a politician anymore. That’s why I think this carries more weight. He can say what he wants and doesn’t have to worry about job security of appealing to the base.

      Also, read the article. This is about the Republican primary. He can vote for folks near term still R. But he alluded to that in a general if it’s trump, he’d probably vote Biden.

      But “the others that are running are acceptable to me and I’d be happy to vote for them,” Romney told “Person to Person’s” Norah O’Donnell when asked which candidates he “liked” in the GOP field.

    • spongebue@lemmy.world
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      I get what you’re saying, but that difference can also come from the fact that there hasn’t been a single primary yet, let alone a Republican nominee. We can speculate on what that will look like, but speculation is not enough to turn that “would” into a “will”

    • Uniquitous@lemmy.one
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      What odds are you giving? Because honestly I’d take that bet. Mitt fucking despises Trump.

    • Copernican@lemmy.world
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      Id bet against you. You think a retired politician would publicly go against his old party but privately do the opposite? Also, this article is mostly about the GOP primary. Read the article, not just the headline.

    • GiddyGap@lemm.ee
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      True, but I still think it’s good to see a little bit of reason coming back here and there. I welcome it.

  • Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social
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    Mitt looks like the villain in an 80s comedy movie and feels like a guy who says what people tell him to say.

    IMHO this is just telling people the Mormon church doesn’t support those guys.

    • The Barto
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      Well he’s neither Trump or Ramaswamy, so yeah, possibly.