America voted the House GOP out. Gerrymandering kept them in.

[Direckshun]

The math:

Between the two parties, voters voted for the Democratic House candidates nationally, 48.8% to 48.5%.

That would translate to Democrats having 214 DNP seats to 212 GOP.

The end results as of now (votes are still being counted in 6 races): 233 GOP to 194 DNP.

That's 53.5% GOP to 44.6% DNP.

A 9-point, 21-seat swing.

Want to know why John Boehner was so quick to extend the olive branch?

That's why.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...got-a-mandate/

House Democrats got more votes than House Republicans. Yet Boehner says he’s got a mandate?
Posted by Ezra Klein
November 9, 2012 at 10:15 am

The political-science evidence is clear on this: There’s no such thing as an election mandate. There’s only what a president is able to get done with the Congress the American people gave him.

But few politicians agree. And so the days and weeks after elections are heavy with arguments about who has a mandate, and for what. The latest debate is about whether President Obama, who ran a campaign explicitly promising to raise taxes on high earners and who beat a candidate explicitly promising to refuse any and all tax increases, has a mandate to raise taxes.

Speaker John Boehner says he doesn’t. “Listen, our majority is going to get reelected,” he said the day before the election. “We’ll have as much of a mandate as he [President Obama] will … to not raise taxes.”

Boehner’s logic is, on its face, sound. House Republicans have been as clear in their opposition to new taxes on the rich as Obama has been in his support for them. And House Republicans were reelected. They have as much right to claim a popular mandate as the president does.

Or they would if they’d actually won more votes. But they didn’t. House Republicans did the equivalent of winning the electoral college while losing the popular vote.

It can be a bit difficult to tally up the popular vote in House elections because you have to go ballot by ballot, and many incumbents run unopposed. But The Washington Post’s Dan Keating did the work and found that Democrats got 54,301,095 votes while Republicans got 53,822,442. That’s a close election — 48.8%-48.5% –but it’s still a popular vote win for the Democrats. Those precise numbers might change a bit as the count finalizes, but the tally isn’t likely to flip.



What saved Boehner’s majority wasn’t the will of the people but the power of redistricting. As my colleague Dylan Matthews showed, Republicans used their control over the redistricting process to great effect, packing Democrats into tighter and tighter districts and managing to restructure races so even a slight loss for Republicans in the popular vote still meant a healthy majority in the House.

That’s a neat trick, but it’s not a popular mandate, or anything near to it — and Boehner knows it. That’s why his first move after the election was to announce, in a vague-but-important statement, that he was open to some kind of compromise on taxes.

[Direckshun]

Originally Posted by patteeu

No rate increases, additional revenue from closing loopholes. The difference between this and Romney's proposal was that Romney was going for something more like lower rates with revenue neutrality. So there's your movement, but it's the same concept focused on keeping rates down while eliminating loopholes (as Bowles-Simpson recommended).

Fair enough. But that's certainly not "essentially the same" as Romney's plan.

Romney's plan called for a $5 trillion tax cut and amped up defense spending, by closing unspecified loopholes.

This is a call to simply close unspecified loopholes.

So perhaps if having one element retained is "essentially the same as," we can admit that Obama's proposals thus far in his presidency are "essentially the same as" major Republican proposals in modern history.

[BucEyedPea]

The difference between the two budgets in overall spending was minimal. Neither party wants to stop spending.

[BucEyedPea]

61% America is on the wrong track
75% Favor a Full Audit of the Federal Reserve
65% Troops in Afghanistan does not make us safer
91% Oppose Renewal of Patriot Act
80% would have like different candidates for 2012
Less that 10% Trust the Federal Government

Don't get too cocky Democrats. It could lead to your being put out to pasture again too.

[patteeu]

Originally Posted by Direckshun

Fair enough. But that's certainly not "essentially the same" as Romney's plan.

Romney's plan called for a $5 trillion tax cut and amped up defense spending, by closing unspecified loopholes.

This is a call to simply close unspecified loopholes.

So perhaps if having one element retained is "essentially the same as," we can admit that Obama's proposals thus far in his presidency are "essentially the same as" major Republican proposals in modern history.

Romney's defense spending ideas have nothing to do with this. I'm talking about tax policy.

As has been the case since the Bowles-Simpson commission reported it's recommendations, we have Obama and most democrats on one side (raise rates and create more loopholes) and Bowles-Simpson, Mitt Romney, John Boehner, and Republicans on the other (cut rates and close loopholes). The differences in details, between Boehner and Romney for example, are far less important than the similarities in philosophy.

[WoodDraw]

I hate gerrymandering. The Republicans aren't the only guilty ones. They have some of the worse examples, but Democrats gerrymandered the **** out of Illinois this last census.

But that won't change without demographic changes in some key states. A few swing states might be able to force through amendments, but the interests are normally so well aligned against it, it's hard.

[Pawnmower]

Originally Posted by Direckshun

That's not gerrymandering.

Call it what you will, it still is a gross misrepresentation of the actual will of the population as a whole.

[Direckshun]

Originally Posted by patteeu

Romney's defense spending ideas have nothing to do with this. I'm talking about tax policy.

As has been the case since the Bowles-Simpson commission reported it's recommendations, we have Obama and most democrats on one side (raise rates and create more loopholes) and Bowles-Simpson, Mitt Romney, John Boehner, and Republicans on the other (cut rates and close loopholes). The differences in details, between Boehner and Romney for example, are far less important than the similarities in philosophy.

There are some of your usual misrepresentations in there, but this is fine for the most part.

[Direckshun]

Originally Posted by Pawnmower

Call it what you will, it still is a gross misrepresentation of the actual will of the population as a whole.

I don't disagree. I'm in favor of selecting the President by pure popular vote.

[BucEyedPea]

Originally Posted by WoodDraw

I hate gerrymandering. The Republicans aren't the only guilty ones. They have some of the worse examples, but Democrats gerrymandered the **** out of Illinois this last census.

But that won't change without demographic changes in some key states. A few swing states might be able to force through amendments, but the interests are normally so well aligned against it, it's hard.

The Republicans in Texas gerrymandered Ron Paul's district to get rid of him. They put him in what would favor a democrat with more minorities. He retired anyway so they could just lose the seat anyway. The R still won and even defeated a Libertarian running.

[patteeu]

Originally Posted by Direckshun

There are some of your usual misrepresentations in there, but this is fine for the most part.

What misrepresentations?

[whoman69]

Originally Posted by patteeu

What misrepresentations?

There isn't any upside to answering this question. You will not acknowledge the salient points in his argument against you anyway. You only want him to respond so that you can pick out a portion of his response to attack.

[patteeu]

Originally Posted by whoman69

There isn't any upside to answering this question. You will not acknowledge the salient points in his argument against you anyway. You only want him to respond so that you can pick out a portion of his response to attack.

What salient points? He accused me of making misrepresentations. I think he owes it to me to specify them instead of smearing me while leaving me no opportunity to set the record straight. I don't think Direckshun is as afraid of getting into a debate with me as you are.

[whoman69]

Originally Posted by patteeu

What salient points? He accused me of making misrepresentations. I think he owes it to me to specify them instead of smearing me while leaving me no opportunity to set the record straight. I don't think Direckshun is as afraid of getting into a debate with me as you are.

You don't debate. You ignore the other person's points while misrepresenting a specific portion of their rebuttal. You are only interested in scoring points in your own column. Their is no other version of the world besides yours. In short you are a troll.

[patteeu]

Originally Posted by whoman69

You don't debate. You ignore the other person's points while misrepresenting a specific portion of their rebuttal. You are only interested in scoring points in your own column. Their is no other version of the world besides yours. In short you are a troll.

You mean like the way you ignored my central question about salient points to focus on my use of the word "debate"?

[Direckshun]

Originally Posted by patteeu

What misrepresentations?

The GOP has long stood in the way of eliminating tax loopholes for corporations and the wealthy.