PeterS

Nice to see there are some conservatives out there with the balls to reject what the current 'Establishment' Republicans are doing to the party!

http://www.newsweek.com/former-mccain-campaign-manager-leaves-republican-party-985854

e was once the campaign manager for Senator John McCain’s 2008 bid for the White House. Now, he's left the party.

GOP strategist Steve Schmidt renounced his membership in the Republican party early Wednesday morning, saying he will now align with Democrats. Schmidt took to Twitter in a long series of tweets to make his announcement.

Steve Schmidt

29 years and nine months ago I registered to v**e and became a member of The Republican Party which was founded in 1854 to oppose s***ery and stand for the dignity of human life. Today I renounce my membership in the Republican Party. It is fully the party of Trump.

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While the longtime Republican has not been shy about criticizing the Trump administration, the move comes as a surprise from someone who managed the campaign of a GOP p**********l nominee 10 years ago.

Lonewolf

Many rank and file are doing the same thing I gave up on them a few years back they work for the 1% you can hear it in their voices and in their legislation!

Manning345 Loc: Richmond, Virginia

Parties lose some and win some in every e******n. It is hard to satisfy everyone on every subject. It is especially hard when a party offers what amounts to bribes for citizens to v**e their way as Dems have done since time immemorial. Let me see. What are they offering today? Anyone?
Free this or that, like free college, or a low interest college loan, a healthy minimum wage, cheap healthcare that turns out to be damn expensive, low interest mortgages or even heavily subsidizing their rent, low interest loans for wh**ever purpose, free cell phones, really nice deductions on taxes, etc. etc.

PeterS

1) free phones was something established under Reagan
2) the free things you cite are beneficial to all society or do you think a college education and jobs training somehow different than a high school education delivered 60 years ago?
3) the low interest loan's you cite are also given to veterans, for start up businesses, and for education--I received all three--repaid all of them--and because of those loans created companies that are still going today and employee thousands of people.
4) the "too damn expensive" healthcare resulted from not being able to pass a single payer system--a system that would have kept prices down and covered everyone in the country--just like 90% of the world has for their healthcare system today...

Manning345 Loc: Richmond, Virginia

Beneficial they may be, but out of sight financially. All too many beneficial things simply cannot be afforded now considering the national debt of somewhere around $20 Trillion, and the yearly debit beginning to soar again over $1 Trillion. Today, we need to look askance at many "beneficial" Multi-Billion Dollar line items. When the national debt reaches around $22 or $23 Trillion, and given the modest growth in GDP we have experienced, It has been stated that at that time, we will be able to afford only the current entitlements and the interest on the debt from revenues. Thus we will be borrowing furiously still, if we can, unless Trump's economy succeeds in raising the GDP substantially. The curious thing is, as revenue increases so do the entitlements, ignoring debt reductions in our never, never land of goodies.

I suggest that many citizens are simply not able to succeed in college and should not be funded to do so. The dropout rate for most colleges follows a pattern of ~50% out the first year, ~25% the second year, and ~15% the third year. Even year four has its dropouts. My first college, Vanderbilt, published the fact that only one in four that entered graduated on the average.

One answer is vocational training which prepares people for a practical job. Some of these training schools are self-financed, or provide loans to students.

That Reagan or Obama tried the phone thing is not a recommendation for it.

My bottom line is: beneficial does not mean affordable just now.

PeterS

1) a quarter of that debt is intergovernmental and to be paid to Social Security
2) since Trump has been elected not a word has been said about our debt that the CB0 estimates to average 1 trillion per year under a 8 year Trump term. The average tax cut for middle America is estimated to be 120 a month (1,600 a year). If running a trillion dollar a year deficit is worth 120 bucks a month then you are not going to get me to give a flip about national debt. You people screamed about it under Obama and then the reason for the debt (the Bush Tax Cuts) you people repeated under your new god Trump. You conservatives have made it crystal clear that you DO NOT CARE about our national debt--unless there is a black democrat in charge and then suddenly you care a whole bunch!

It's a fricking phone dude! They connect the homeless to potential employers, to relatives, to the rest of the world they would otherwise be isolated from.

PeterS

And this should be...and further:

Do you people not understand how many people like me it take for our of our social programs to pay for themselves? Right now, what I pay quarterly, is enough to pay for every penny my entire family ever borrowed from the system--and I am the only one to have made it financially. Now say that just one in ten succeed and your entire social program is paid for indefinitely. Now forget the people and substitute millions of salaries from the economy that are provided by people who work for the businesses that are paid for (initially) by government programs. Our economy is barely able to push 3% after a massive tax cut. Do what you are talking about and we wouldn't even be able to push 1% a quarter.

And no offence but you cons are so short sighted it incredible. A phone in the hands of a homeless person connects them to the rest of the world which makes them eligible for jobs, for homeless shelters, food kitchens and on and on plus in exchange it only amounts to penny's to the average tax payer.

Then there is the fact that not a single conservative has complained about a annual deficit estimated to be 1 trillion or more under Trump. If you guys don't care, and you don't, then you aren't going to get us democrats to care again. We supported you during the 90's when we balanced the budget and were in position to start paying down debt then the first opportunity you got you gave yourself a tax cut, I think it was worth one latte a day, and the deficit soared again.

There is not a conservative I trust as far as I can spit when it comes to deficit spending. The trillions we ran up under Obama were principally due to the Bush tax cut but you people used the deficit as a hammer to pound on Obama. I'll tell you right now Manning. You are talking to the wrong person about debt. You need to talk to your fellow republicans and tell them the last two tax cuts they received has put this nation trillions in the hole. As for your phones and other government spending--you simply don't know what you are talking about. A 50% success rate in college would pay for every college program ever offered. You are looking at everything as if it is half full when a 50% success rate for any government program would be so astronomical that it would be mind blowing for those who know anything about government programs.

The nature of human being sucks, I will give you that, but just 1 phone in 10 in the hands of someone who will better themselves makes the program worth while. And besides, we are talking about debt you people don't really care about so if we are going to run debt then we might as well have it do some good--other then simply going to the top 1% where it gets spent on a new yacht (stimulating a foreign economy) or something else just a frivolous...