President (To Win Colorado)
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(D) Joe Biden*
(R) Donald Trump
80%
20%
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
(R) V. Archuleta
98%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Marshall Dawson
95%
5%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(D) Adam Frisch
(R) Jeff Hurd
50%
50%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert
(D) Trisha Calvarese
90%
10%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Jeff Crank
(D) River Gassen
80%
20%
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
(R) John Fabbricatore
90%
10%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) B. Pettersen
(R) Sergei Matveyuk
90%
10%
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(D) Yadira Caraveo
(R) Gabe Evans
70%
30%
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
October 25, 2009 07:15 PM UTC
83 Comments
However, even more I prefer a functioning government that creates a system that enables me to make a success of my company. All three above are pandering to “we’ll lower your taxes” rather than addressing the much harder problem of what should the government do, how should it do it, and how should it fund it.
Casting stones from the sides isn’t helping any. All three of you were elected to solve problems. Get to work!
Stop showing how smart you are and start working with progressive coalitions and members to be part of the solution, not just the smart kid at the front of the class waiving desperately to be called on.
Is there anyone who still thinks he’s doing a good job besides Ali Hasan?
From now on, I vote for the R until he’s turned out of office. Or any viable 3rd party candidate.
have the seat as long as he wants. If you’re that angry start looking for a primary challenger.
But it is still Dem-loyal, so in practice I think you’re correct. Whether a challenge comes form the left or the right, it has to be in the primary.
And if Polis keeps saying one thing and doing another, a primary may be in his near future. All the money in the world will not keep his job if he pisses off his base.
Think Perot. With a strong enough Green candidate, Polis could lose a 3-way election.
You’re saying that a nut job Republican is better at this point? I have to tell you, this entire Polis gripe is because he’s acting like a… Republican. MotR is right about pissing off the Dem. base. It’s the only way he’s out of a job.
If there’s a strong enough 3rd party challenge from the left, Polis could lose to the righty.
Two years later, the righty loses.
A Republican or a Green? Either scenario is highly unlikely, in my opinion. A strong Dem primary, on the other hand, is realistic and a sure way to put another Dem in this seat.
Not at all. And it really shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. I still don’t understand how he got the nomination in the first place. Excuse me. I understand the mechanics of how. Guess I never understood the why.
We could have entire blog dedicated to this nonsense from Jared.
Not that I don’t think Pols should be pointing this stuff out, just that’s it happens constantly. If you still think Polis represents anyone other than himself you’re a fool.
It’s too bad, CD2 could have been represented by someone actually interested in the legislative process and making people’s lives better. Instead we’ve got a millionaire dilettante who’s only concerned about issues that directly impact him.
Somehow I think a psych eval would reveal more about why he makes the decisions he does, beyond what any political analysis would show. If he in any way contributes to a failure on health care reform, then he should be primaried.
but the laypeople call it “being a douche.”
My position has been consistent on this matter. I will not stand quietly by and let a poorly construed payment mechanism bring down healthcare reform. There are many votes in the House that simply won’t support a surcharge that is bad politics and more importantly bad economic policy.
To understand the 2nd Congressional District, it is critical to understand small business. In the western part of my district, small businesses are truly the backbone of our mountain communities, especially in the retail, hospitality, and construction sectors. The Boulder-Broomfield corridor is a renowned start-up hotbed, and thousands of jobs are created each year by small businesses in my district.
While self-employed individuals and small businesses stand to gain the most from this bill with the creation of exchanges that give them the same buying power as large corporations, there is increasing agreement that they should not bear the entire tax burden.
The new House bill will do both of the items mentioned in my remarks on the House floor:
1)It is expected that the new House bill will reduce the costs of the plan to under $900 billion over ten years, a reduction of over $200 billion and a figure in line with President Obama’s goal. I remain hopeful that we reduce the cost to a level where we actually reduce the deficit as part of passing healthcare reform; then those who vote “no” are voting for more deficit spending. I expect that we will get there, particularly if we have the robust public option in the bill, which saves $120 billion dollars.
2)The new house bill is expected to modify the surcharge so that more small businesses are not impacted by this new tax.
Lastly, there are attractive alternative payment mechanisms on the table. The one with the most support politically is the proposal by Senator John Kerry, currently in the Senate version, that would tax insurance companies for their sale of benefits packages above a certain level. While of course it is and should be painful to raise any tax on anything, John Kerry’s proposal is relevant to reducing the costs of healthcare and does not place the burden on small business but rather on insurance companies themselves.
We are nearing majority support in the Democratic caucus for a “robust” public option, which is critical to control costs and provide consumers with real choice.
Thank you for your interest in the someone arcane but extremely important matter of how we pay for health care reform.
Congressman Jared Polis
No one is disputing that you have been consistently wrong on this issue Congressman.
You’re wrong on the substance and you’re wrong on the politics and that’s been your modus operandi since long before your election to Congress. So, again, no one is disputing your consistency.
But I strongly agree with the President.
It’s not that I am an automatic supporter of Obama’s position; I voted against the President on a supplemental funding bill that furthered the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I’ve been critical of the speed with which they are approaching progress on LGBT equality issues.
On this issue, however, I strongly support President Obama and am working to ensure that the House plan more closely resembles the Obama health care reform plan.
In his September 10th Speech to the join session of Congress, President Obama offered his preferred method of paying for health care reform, a method I strongly supprt:
While there are elements of the House bill that are stronger than the President’s initial proposal, the method of paying for the House bill in the initial proposal was worse than President Obama’s preferred mechanism hence my support of the President’s plan.
Sorry Congressman, I don’t carry water for the President. My concern is delivering healthcare to tens of millions of uninsured.
Your concern seems to be protecting your own bank account.
I’m perfectly comfortable with my position on the issue. How you sleep at night is your problem Congressman.
Excuse me, Rep. Polis, but that is pure BS. As was pointed out on these pages last July, you are the one damaging the prospects for passing this healthcare bill by guarding the interests of a mere 4.1% of individuals and S-Corp businesses (including yourself).
Even you admit above that [most, if not all] small businesses would benefit the most by this bill. But you conflate the penalty with the benefits as also affecting all small businesses.
The fact is, the surcharge only affects individuals and small businesses (S-Corp) with adjusted gross incomes (i.e. after all legal deductions) over $1 million. As a small business owner, my wife and I would love to have that problem. We’d also like our employees to have health benefits, something that we can’t afford to offer.
Please, do you really believe Reps. Coffman or Lamborn will vote for any reform bill? Is standing in solidarity with them really that important to you and your constituents?
Thank goodness that at least my representative, Diana DeGette is exercising more common sense and leadership than apparently you possess.
That 4.1% of small businesses employ nearly half of the people employed by small businesses.
… if a company with as many as 1,500 employees is considered “Small”, what does that make the rest of us?
Irrelevant apparently.
Courtesy of JeffcoBlue:
That is the tax rate. Effectively, they are paying around 7%, IIRC, the lowest rate of contribution to running the government since FDR.
If I know this, surely you do, Congressman. So why did you….um…misstate?
But legislating is hard work.
And sometimes, in the sausage factory otherwise known as congress, you don’t get your way.
You have embarked upon the best course possible for wrecking health care reform. If only every congressperson could find some “arcane” aspect of the complex package and then draw a huffy line in the sand about it. That’s the perfect recipe for doing nothing productive and for preserving the status quo. Thank you, Congressman Polis!
signed,
I Got Mine.
The issues that I have raised have helped move the House bill towards better reflecting President Obama’s health care reform. Though the payment mechanism that the President sought is currently only in the Senate version, it is helpful to show that it also has support in the House so that it can be included in the final bill.
I really hadn’t planned on pushing this issue at all, and obviously didn’t initiate this diary, but the SEIU has helped me crystalize my thinking on this matter to the point where now I am now more outspoken in my support of the Kerry/Obama proposal over the Rangel proposal.
At risk of feeling the wrath of everyone here, I must say I agree with the Congressman. I think the Kerry plan makes much more sense in terms of funding this reform.
Additionally, I think the point the Congressman is making is that by including the small business tax increases, the House Democrats, themselves, may be killing this reform. With this provision included in the bill, can it pass in the Senate? Supporting this would certainly bring opposition campaign slogans suggesting Democratic Reps, and the President, are anti-small business regardless of the true effect.
And beyond politics, should we be punishing businesses that employ so many but still struggle to provide adequate health care benefits to their employees? Or should we force the insurance companies that continue to rip off Americans daily to help pay for the damage they have caused?
That failure to reform our healthcare system will do far more to hurt small businesses than all the “sky is falling” baloney put forth by Republican congressmen who have no intention of voting for any kind of reform.
is the one where you got up, hand in hand with the far right of the far right to reinforce their arguments for the status quo.
The fact that a politician is capable of speaking out of both sides of his mouth is not particularly interesting to me.
If you want to make a point, fine. But to do it as part of the Republican Study Committee’s unified front in opposition to President Obama does not, to me, spell any kind of support for the Obama plan.
I know you think it makes you look hip and modern to blog on ColoradoPols, but it really is beneath you and your office.
…Jamba said nicely.
I blogged long before I was a US Representative, and my constituents enjoy being able to interact with me personally in this way.
My approach to representation is very high touch. In the virtual world, I communicate with constituents on blogs, facebook, twitter, myspace, and email. In the physical world, I held over 23 town hall meetings in August and several since to give constituents of my district the chance to be heard on issues that are important to them.
There are voters who voted for me because of my participation in the online medium.
Congressman Jared Polis
My families health insurance just went up 36%! The insurance companies are acting with impunity. Health shouldn’t be a profit motivated game. The country, and all of us in it, would be much “safer” if the government took care of our health, rather than build empire.
When will you make the “funding mechanism” the core of your defense expenditures policy discussions?
There are many serious challenges facing our country. If it were my list, I would start with energy (the driver) and follow with climate, economic health, environmental health (closely tied to climate), education (we are an ignorant lot…sry everyone…but I would pursue an integrated/unity of knowledge approach, which unfortunately was lost when the Enlightenment ended in the 17th Century)so that systemically we have a grip, and probably end up focusing on community and decentralization of resource utilization.
The future will best perform if our elected representatives understand the picture from “30,000” feet. Waste, population and pollution is that picture IMHO.
Energy, water, community, health care, and a locallly sustainable economy are all in the mix.
Thanks for your input. I agree that energy and all the issues that stem from it including economic growth, climate change, and security, is the largest challenge we face. I am hopeful that we will pass a real energy policy to move towards ending our reliance on fossil fuels.
One of the main accomplishments of health care reform is to force real competition in the insurance industry. A viable public options ensures a national competitive presence and will force insurance companies to spend a higher percentage of their income on patient benefits rather than executive salaries or bureaucratic systems designed to deny claims.
Congressman Jared Polis
The world is innovating and moving much quicker on its feet than the U.S. Your best efforts will be required, and your constituencies should ask for nothing less.
Good luck. It would be wonderful to be in your shoes.
It’s easy to just hurl invective and sarcasm, as some of your critics on the left do. If I had my way, I’d go to a single payer health care system paid for by a value-added tax with things like groceries and drugs eliminated to reduce the burden on the poor. But I think discussion like yours that points out the drawbacks of some of the interim measures advances the debate.
As we said at West Point:
Illegitimiti non te carborundum
(Don’t let the bastards grind you down.”
if you don’t have to personally pay any more for it to happen.
When you actually start personally sacrificing in order to make something you care about happen, THEN one can call himself a man.
Until then one remains a spoiled rich kid who owes everything to his parents.
I wonder how many people notice that Polis hates them SO VERY MUCH that he won’t even disagree with them. Instead he just lies about his position.
Why did he sign a letter telling the FCC not to enact any new regulations, when net neutrality specifically requires new regulations? Because that was the best way to support net neutrality!
Why does he join Republicans in denouncing the Democratic health care proposal because of a tax he doesn’t like? Because that’s what the President would have wanted! (If only he were around to tell us whether he supports the actual health care reform bills that are being proposed, instead of the mythical one Polis pulled out of thin air!)
And why does he call the Democratic party `your grandfather’s tax-and-spend party’? (paraphrase, can’t remember the exact quote.) Well, it’s because he lives in SUCH A CONSERVATIVE DISTRICT that the only way he can possibly win re-election is to denounce the Democratic party at every opportunity.
You see, it’s all perfectly reasonable once you stop thinking like a Democrat and start thinking like a narcissistic brat.
I’m sure you probably wouldn’t be blogging here if Josh wasn’t paying you.
TaxCheat – if that’s the sentence you reserve for my Congressman, then how exactly do we define a sockpuppet to a Republican campaign that is attempting to indict the entire Republican Party of the late 1990s and early 2000s?
Again TaxCheat – purveyors of garbage are more than welcome to distribute their slime – but please restrain from transitioning into the business of honest political critique
I love any elected representative that’s willing to street fight for his/her opinions and slug it out, with a gentlemans discipline and respect – a far cry from the echoes of an inarticulate sock-puppet
Bravo Congressman Polis
Where you stand up and vote for a public option.
I measure people by their deeds, not by their words.
First, my concern is that it’s easy for each person in congress to find a reason to vote against a bill like this. To pass what is required is a majority says that yes, this hurts groups that are important to you, but we all need to accept both some pain and some inequity to craft a compromise.
Second, if you offer me a real fix for health-care, including bringing it down to 12% of the economy, and in return my taxes go up 5% on the profit over a million – I’ll take that. (Of course my profit at present is under a million so easy to say.)
Third, if your concern is as you say, can I suggest the following alternatives:
a) Have it step in where the full 5% starts at 10M or even 20M.
b) Give us a way to roll profits over to the next year within the company as long as we are continuing to spend x% of our income (including the roll-over) in that following year.
When your primary actions are complaining about the funding mechanism, then you are obstructing not helping the bill. And when this is an issue that impacts you directly financially – it smells. You can be doing it for the purest of reasons, but it still smells to a large number of people.
At a minimum, you need to be fighting for an alternative rather than against the present proposal.
not the smartest Congressman in America.
Which is Jared Polis, who did you think it was?
It would only be reasonable for Polis to compromise once everyone else agrees to his ideas on every single aspect of the plan. After all, he’s smarter than you, he’s smarter than me, he’s smarter than his erstwhile fans on this site, and he’s smarter than everyone else in CD-2. Furthermore he’s smarter than the Speaker, he’s smarter than the Whip, he’s smarter than the Majority Leader, and by extension he’s smarter than every other Congressperson.
Which is why he thinks he’s doing such a service by listening to them, hanging out wiht them, eating lunch with them, and giving LOTS AND LOTS OF MONEY to them. Yet somehow they still think their own stupid ideas are worth listening to.
Jared Polis has thought deeply, for like 10, even 15 minutes, about all these issues, and has figured out what everyone else fails to understand. That everyone else won’t listen to him just speaks of their venality and probable corruption.
Nobody is voting for or against this based on whether it taxes Jared Polis at a slightly higher rate. Not even you.
Speaker Pelosi asked all Congresspeople whether they’re for or against the Medicare-plus-five option. You weren’t listed as a “leaner.”
So you’re either on board with the vote (which is exactly what you should be doing, in which case your griping about this is utterly toothless and pointless), or you’re against it (in which case you’re so much worse than even your harshest critic could have suspected).
At least we don’t expect anything better of Mike Coffman. But apparently some people once thought better of you. They’re learning a hard lesson.
with angry snipers stationed all around and a target on my back, I’m going to exercise the same “poor judgment” that has made me a known figure here, and offer a few honest observations:
I think it’s facile to suggest that Congressman Polis is motivated by crude self-interest. I track his argument, and it is a legitimate one, whether I agree with it or not.
Congressman Polis is far too smart, whatever faults he may have, to believe that he can most effectively serve his self-interest by getting elected to Congress and taking business-friendly stands on policy issues. His perspective of what is in the public interests is, inevitably, formed in large part by his experience, and in that sense there is a connection. But I see absolutely no reason to doubt the sincerity of his position, and no reason to focus the argument on assessments of his character.
Frankly, I think that he and Governor Ritter have something in common: They do what they think is right (and perhaps, in both cases, there is some arrogance involved), even knowing that to do so incurs a political liability, and then reap the reward of the venom of those who believe that pandering is the cornerstone of integrity, while actual integrity is proof of a character flaw.
There are legitimate arguments both for and against Congressman Polis’ position. Some here, to their credit, have focused on those arguments. They are all that really matters.
You’re in another district.
you’ve just lost me.
And I reject the notion that there are “there are legitimate arguments both for and against Congressman Polis’ position.”
Congressman Polis’s position was on the floor of the House with the Republican Study Committee–the congressional message shop of the Phyllis Schlafly/Grover Norquist/Rush Limbaugh far right.
There is no legitimate argument for buttressing the obstructionism of the fringe right in the name of civility.
and criticize Jared’s position below, as well as explain my statement regarding legitimate positions. Of course, I may be wrong in my assessment, but it is my honest assessment.
But I also appreciate the civility of your emphatic disagreement with me: Stating that you would not vote for me is perfectly legitimate, and not, I think, at all rude. No hard feelings on my part.
Focusing on solving a narrow issue at the expense of the larger problem.
Rep. Polis’ motives are irrelevant. It’s the effect of his actions that dismay us.
Raising taxes to pay for needed change sucks. 45,000 annually dying for lack of adequate health care sucks even more.
As we’ve seen, cutting spending on the bill is severely limiting its value to those who need it most (in a futile attempt at bipartisanship). To the point that should a weakened bill pass, the proponents of its failure, the GOP, may be able to ask “are you better off than before?”, and crow that it would have been better to do nothing, thus protecting the status quo.
No one wants to repeat the mistakes of the GOP in recklessly increasing spending without the means to pay for it. Health care is expensive, and getting more so at an alarming pace. Weakening the bill in an effort to keep it under an arbitrary ceiling is likely penny-wise and pound-foolish.
Individuals and businesses (large and small) are paying an effective tax rate of 16% for just health care alone (GDP=National Income in the Econ classes I took). It just happens to be collected by profit-driven non-governmental bureaucrats.
Which entity do you think will deliver more actual health care for that money, a profit-driven entity or a non-profit entity?
I was defending civility.
I disagree with Jared on this, precisely because, given the difficulty of passing major legislation, the ease of scuttling it, the necessity of party discipline to accomplish it, and the ability to refine it once passed, his objections don’t come close to justifying undermining this absolutely critical effort.
I think he’s wrong, and I think it’s important that he receives feedback that emphatically informs him of why he is wrong. It is not due to the particulars of his analysis so much as to the exigencies of the bigger picture.
If you re-read my above post, it did not state that I agreed with him, only that disagreement does not require, and does not benefit from, expressions of contempt, and attributions of malicious intent.
Having said that, there’s a reason why I wrote that there are legitimate arguments on both sides here. I think, Harry, you are presenting a false dichotomy between paying for the bill with the taxes necessary, or failing to do so. There is a legitimate question about how to structure taxes to have the least dampening impact on the economy. The political process rarely allows that challenge to be addressed in the most effective manner possible. But that fact is precisely why the imperfection of the structuring of taxes to pay for a particular bill cannot be allowed to be a justification for scuttling it. To do so would completely undermine our ability to implement needed reforms.
In deference to the big picture, I disagree emphatically with Jared’s position. And in deference to an even bigger picture, I disagree emphatically with our collective tendency to diminish our ability to design and implement good policies by reducing politics to a blood-sport. Whatever the public forum, reason is preferable to anger, focus on issues is preferable to focus on personalities, and civility is preferable to belligerence.
If worked harder on achieving those aims, we would have had universal single payer health care long ago.
which has already been written. Pelosi will bring a bill that features compromises from the efforts of various committees. Polis is on one of those committees and had the opportunity to get his little tax break into his little committee’s bill.
He couldn’t even convince his fellow Democrats on that committee to support his position.
Now he goes on the floor of the House to argue against THE ONLY bill the Democrats will propose. A bill he’s already voted against.
As far as I can understand, the Polis position is, “Once the Communist revolution happens, I’ll support universal health care, but for now if we hurt the rich at all, I’m against it!” You’ll forgive me if I think that’s worse than counterproductive.
Or you won’t, but I guess that’s your problem.
I agree that it’s counterproductive. I explained why in my response to Harry.
But I disagree that taxing businesses hurts only the rich. In an ideal world, we would structure taxes to minimize their impact on the not-so-rich, which probably isn’t the case in the House bill. That’s not a good enough reason to scuttle it, but one could, conceivably, make the mistake of thinking it is without having the intention of serving the interests of only the very rich.
Regardless of the intentions of this one congressman, in another context, when it isn’t conflated with health care reform, I would love to see movement toward smarter structuring of taxes. But I don’t want that conversation to come at the expense of health care reform. On that, we are in complete agreement.
But I zeroed in on your opening line of defense of him in saying:
Thus my point that his motives are irrelevant in that the chilling effect of his actions could do more harm to thousands, and possibly millions, than any possible benefit to his “small businesses” could justify.
I’m not sure I get your point about a false dichotomy — we need the best health care reform bill we can squeeze out of Congress, but we have to pay for it.
Lowballing the price tag of any politically acceptible options to avoid new taxes is a foolish game. As for expecting completely rational and civil discourse, well, I’d love to see that too, but I’m not going to hold my breath.
But I believe you and I share the opinion that single-payer would be the most rational choice:
So I also used your defense of Rep. Polis as a soapbox to advance my agenda. Otherwise, I would have stopped after the first couple of sentences 😉
Thanks!
that the consequences of derailing health care reform are far more compelling than any of the other issues on the table in this little side-bar of ours: If raking a congressman over the coals for raising the wrong issues at the wrong time will help get the bill passed, then that’s just the way it goes.
It’s just that I did detect a reasoned argument in Jared’s position, even if I would prefer it not to be raised in this context. Maybe I’m injecting something into it that wasn’t there, but it seems to me that his position is more about how to structure the taxes than whether to impose them.
Taxes aren’t monolithic: They come in many forms, with many consequences. For instance, we could, conceivably, help fund public health insurance by placing enormous taxes on cigarettes, alcohol, and fatty foods, with the effect of having those choices pay their own way (and be discouraged at the same time). Imposing identical taxes on the manufacturers of exercise equipment, or on computer components, would have very different kinds of social and economic consequences. In an ideal world, we would structure our taxes very carefully, with a very keen eye on the systemic consequences.
I have absolutely no objection to imposing sufficient taxes to pay for a transition to a more efficient and universal health care system, or to pay for the maintenance of such a system if necessary. But that doesn’t mean that there is no relevant issue of how we structure those taxes.
But just to reiterate: This is the wrong context for raising that issue. Major legislation is hard enough to pass without insisting that it pass every litmus test. I agree that it was a bad call.
is that Polis is too stupid to realize the difference between his own self-interest and the common good.
Kudos for you for being so kind to him.
And thanks for dismissing everyone who doesn’t ascribe the purest of motives to him. That’s exactly how you convince everyone you’re not a condescending douchebag. (Not that you needed to!)
to the individuals, but to the habits, habits which I am not immune to. I’m criticizing myself as much as others, to the extent that we fall into those habits.
I don’t really know what his motives are. But I’m pretty sure of two things: 1) No one else (except, possibly, Jared himself) knows either, and 2) they aren’t particularly relevant (as Harry rightly stated).
I didn’t mean to insult anyone, and, in fact, was particularly loathe to insult you (I very much appreciated something you posted recently). It wasn’t my intention.
But I really do believe that we would contribute more of value to our collective welfare if we all tried a little harder to focus more on the issues and on making good arguments, and less on our animosities.
(I’ll try harder to be less of a condescending douchebag. I don’t know though: Old habits are hard to break.)
and yet, I don’t think civility accomplishes very much with Polis.
He doesn’t reply to me here anymore, which is fine, but even people who seriously take him to task for his position on issues get responses claiming, “Oh, that thing I said against health care reform actually means I’m the most pro-health-care-reform in the House!”
He said the same thing about his letter against net neutrality.
If you genuinely disagree with Polis about something he did, he simply claims his position is yours, even if that contradicts obvious facts. And I’m not talking about “room for interpretation,” I’m talking about the plain facts of the case.
“I think this tax will hurt small businesses” is an opinion. A silly one, I think, but I can at least imagine that someone might legitimately reach.
“Opposing this bill is what President Obama would have wanted me to do if he were still alive” (paraphrase) is just blatantly contradictory to the plain facts of the situation, and there is absolutely no other person in the country who thinks it’s true.
“Opposing any new rules on internet providers is a way to achieve net neutrality” (paraphrase) is another Polis position that absolutely nobody familiar with the issues would even imagine makes any sense.
So how do you deal with a politician who simply refuses to debate honestly? Eventually you just kind of stop having respect for him.
on health care reform and net neutrality as closely as you have, so maybe you’re right. I really don’t know.
But when I did listen to him intently one time, defending the stimulus package, I had a completely different impression: He struck me as strikingly reasonable, consistent, and willing to say what some in the audience didn’t want to hear.
In any case, I don’t begrudge you your judgment: You’re completely entitled to it, and you may well have good reason for it. I don’t think it’s our judgments themselves that are at issue: We will always have them.
I’d just like to see them play a smaller role in public discourse. Maybe that’s not possible; maybe it’s not even functional. But it’s a preference I can’t help but promote.
Dude…. I think you’ve had enough to drink tonight….
for you when people study issues and conclude things. I wonder how I’d react if I saw a bunch of people who knew things that they’d learned, while the only thing I had going for me was my father’s money.
Ever have a discussion with someone that wasn’t based primarily on “can’t we all just get along because we’re all rich here?” frat-boy bro-talk?
Frat boy bro talk is kinda…. well…. my specialty….
I don’t get you, Muhammad Ali. Republican, smart on the street and with a calculator, but needlessly antagonistic (which I admit to being at time but nobody knows what restaurant I bake pastries at, either), and you hide in plain site. Good luck getting a campaign off the ground, dude.
You need to start taking your own fucking advice. Don’t ever give me shit for talking to Harvey the way I do when the way you behave on this site towards Ali, Polis and anyone else that has the misfortune to disagree with you gets treated like shit on your shoe. Thanks for reminding me to pretty much ignore anything you have to say from here on out.
I don’t object to mocking Steve Harvey or anyone else, I just thought it had gotten old. My mocking of Polis and Hasan is based on their continued behavior, not some argument I had with either of them three months ago. Do whatever you want, though.
Listen, Polis makes himself a fundament of pilory when he brazenly goes after measures that clearly profit himself and few else without a care in the world, and then says he didn’t do it when someone notices. He does it so often now that he deserves mocking and would probably even admit as much in private conversation.
Muhammad Ali asks for what he receives and seems to enjoy the attention. Harvey seems nice enough and educated, but more like a lobbyist seeking elected office to cut better deals than someone who truly believes in anything sincerely. His platform is that we get along and read more; he knows better than to sell stale bread to a pasty chef or he should.
Bottom line: If you knowingly make yourself public, you are saying that you want to be known publicly by your legal name. At that juncture, you are saying that you accept whatever comes of posting on silly blogs. And you ought to be able to stand a little ribbing if you want to run for office.
except that I think Harvey has had enough. He went from being the Hero of the Blog (he was “Polster of the month” or something back in January and was a very close second for front-pager status) to being a virtual pariah. Some of that was deserved, I thought, but I was shocked at how fast it happened. And unlike Polis or Hasan, Harvey seemed genuinely chastened by his treatment here.
Polis will always have his defenders, and Hasan has enough money that he’s immune to everything, but given that Harvey genuinely cares what people here think of him, I thought it might be nice if people lightened up on him a bit (especially after a couple months of nothing but bile from virtually all the regulars). Which is not to say I agree even a teeny-tiny bit with his notion that the “process” of a debate is important, especially compared to the “substance,” but I think everyone deserves a second chance.
I could be wrong, and I’m hardly a person who should be telling anyone to be polite to anyone else given my own ready-steady-go source of bile, but I try to be selective in my persecutions.
I appreciate your generous comments. I think there’s a lot of truth in them.
One thing I would amend, though, is the characterization of my platform: I think it’s a little more involved than just recommending that we all get along and read more! Though, you’re right: I do encourage both of those.
But, as a matter of designing policy, I take almost the opposite approach: I assume that people will be intellectually lazy and predominantly selfish, and seek to design policies accordingly. It’s not because all people actually are intellectually lazy and predominantly selfish, or that those characteristics are what define us, but rather that those are the characteristics for which social policies are most needed. When people act wisely and altruistically, the common good is served without requiring much recourse to the constraining social institutions which facilitate the common good under less propitious circumstances.
Even if our baser qualities need to be the primary informer of social policies, there is still plenty of room for policies which seek to facilitate our better natures: Opportunities to volunteer, and to contribute spontaneously to the welfare of others. The two sides of the challenge are not really separate in practice: Promote the development of strong communities, and tie them into facilitating governmental structures.
These, and other, ideas are fleshed out in much more detail on my campaign website.
It’s nice to be back.
that I am absolutely sincere about my commitment to using the political process to perpetually increase the robustness, sustainability, and fairness of our social institutional framework. In other words, I am sincerely committed to trying to produce as much human happiness, as extensively distributed, with consideration for being able to do so indefinitely, as possible. But Chef is right that I try to minimize the assumption of inflexible positions subordinate to that one, and believe that that is more conducive to the ultimate goal. (There are some positions, especially those based on sheer bigotry, that just can’t be negotiated away, though).
for a second I thought you were pulling an Alan Sokal
We put a ½% tax on all financial transactions? Buying/selling stocks, bonds, derivatives, etc. Everything no matter how exotic.
First off, this is the activity that got us in to this depression. Only fair it pays the way out.
Second, a lot of the hyper-trading is based on very small imbalances in the market. Having some friction in the form of a tax will outweigh many of those imbalances and reduce hyper-trading. That would be a good thing.
As to the argument that a tax would skew the necessary free market in financial instruments, people aren’t that worried that an 8% tax skews the decision to purchase a cup of coffee.
Solves two problems with a single solution. I’d heard about the 0.25% proposal that has been kicking around for several months.
But the rise of automated hypertrading executing thousands of trades every second rigs the game against the rest of us. A tiny transaction tax like this would shut that down, just as the SEC’s rules to suspend trading when the current automated systems provoke a market freefall have prevented several large scale catastrophes.
has been kicking around.
I like the tax, but I think it should be assigned to support regulatory and solvency activity in the financial sector.
I personally think the way to go on funding health care is the way described in the House bill.
I don’t want to get in to this, but taxing benefit plans is a tax on working people and taxing people making $500k a year is a tax on hedge fund managers.
I think the sources of tax revenues should be diverse to flatten the effect of short term economic shocks. But my beef with the good Congressman is not about his policy opinions, it’s about his actions on the floor of the House.
I don’t get the tenor of the debate. The most vitriolic comments and some of the ones actually talking about the merits (although they’re few and far between on this diary) seem to come down to:
a) Jared is not toeing the standard “progressive” agenda (whatever the hell that is); and
b) Jared is actively helping the R’s kill a health reform bill
On the first, thank god for small miracles. On the second, we’re going to get a health care bill, one way or the other. Getting a shitty bill passed is going to lock us into a world of misery for decades. As a (very) small business owner/entrepreneur who pays a ridiculously high monthly premium for a catastrophic-only plan, I have a personal stake in the outcome and I absolutely support Jared’s positions on this. And as a former staffer who worked in the trenches on bills like this, I don’t buy for a second that Jared’s actions are helping derail this train.
Why some of you seem to think that insulting a sitting Congressman is productive is beyond me. Are you frustrated that you don’t have real substantive arguments to offer? If you do, those arguments would do much more to influence your Representative than calling him “spoiled,” “rich,” “douche,” etc. He’s not going to vote with you because you call him names.
I think we get it. A lot of Polis’ constituents here are progressives. You don’t like us either. We get that.
But I hope you realize that defending him on that basis doesn’t help him with the rest of his constituents. True, a lot of them aren’t from Boulder, but remember that Polis didn’t do that great outside Boulder. His most fervent supporters (among the ones I met) were people who thought he was a genuine progressive and that Fitz-Gerald was a sellout to the oil lobby.
I’ve said Polis is a douche. I’ve given reasons across many comments in many posts. Sometimes substantive, sometimes just name-calling as a shortcut. I’ve never gotten any sense that Polis cares a whit about what you think or what I think. He does what he does regardless of his constituents.
You say this means he’s a thinker. I could understand this if he didn’t take diametrically-opposite positions from one day to the next, then pretend that they weren’t opposed at all. That’s a hallmark of someone who doesn’t think much at all, rather someone who takes action for its own sake, then has to backtrack when it turns out to be wrong.
If I thought I had the slightest influence over Polis as an anonymous commenter, I’d be much friendlier to him. The only response I’ve ever heard from him to a constituent who disagreed with him was condescension and misrepresentation.
There are people who don’t say “thank god” when their representative advocates against their interests. Please try to understand their views, even if you don’t respect them.
I don’t dislike “Progressives;” a lot of my politics is. What I dislike is tribalism in politics: this notion that there’s a set of policies that all people who hold roughly similar values should all automatically be on board with. That there’s this tribe called “Progressives” and if you’re a member of the tribe you want the same thing that all other members want.
It seems to me that you have this idea that all of CD-2 wants the same thing. We don’t. As an over-paying, underinsured CD-2 resident with two kids and another one coming soon, I want affordable health insurance. What I don’t want that to mean is a blanket expansion of Medicaid/Medicare across the board, and it seems to me that’s where the House is heading. You say “He does what he does regardless of his constituents.” I don’t think so. I think he knows well who his constituents are, and realizes they are far broader than the group of people who live between 4th and 55th, Table Mesa and Lee Hill.
This entire thread and all the attacks on Jared’s movements on health reform seem predicated on the idea that Jared should shut the hell up and work for whatever the House power structure is trying to get done.
As far as how JP engages with people, I’ve apparently had the opposite experience. Even when I was openly supporting Shafroth during the primary, and was very critical of JP on my blog, I was engaging with JP over email and he was engaging back. It’s continued a bit since he took office. I’ve gotten nothing but respect from him, even when I was harsh on him.
“It seems to me that you have this idea that all of CD-2 wants the same thing.”
No, I quite specifically said they don’t in my post. Yet I’m pretty sure Polis’ base is Boulder. They’re the ones who pushed him over the top, and they’re the ones who are expecting him to be supportive of progressive goals.
Unless you’re just not reading my posts and instead responding to me as though I’m the embodiment of all you dislike about progressives, I really don’t see how you could possibly attribute that idea to me.
As for “tribes,” the progressives really aren’t one, but the Democrats in some sense are. Could Polis have gotten elected as a very liberal Republican? No, not even if CD-2 kicked the town of Boulder out of the district. We don’t need Polis supporting every Democratic proposal, but we do need him to not denounce the Democratic party the way Senator Palpatine does. My impression is that the people who complain about Polis (or at least myself) are unhappy not so much because of his personal views about any particular issue, but about the way in which he expresses them, sometimes to the point of trying to inflict damage not just on the proposal he disagrees with but on the party as a whole. Referring to the Democratic party as “your grandfather’s tax-and-spend party” and the like is much, much worse than voting against the health care bill in committee, although he’s done both.
Polis was quite famous for blogging and interacting with potential voters in a much more direct way than most politicians, and I have to concede it was a good thing. He’s done much less of it since being elected, I think. Even when he does engage (as in this thread), he sounds more like a campaign flack than a person.
It doesn’t surprise me that he’d correspond with you, or that you would find yourself so flattered by the attention that you take any criticism of him so personally. I’d imagine that was his reason for doing it.
that’s part of my point: who cares that Boulder pushed him over the edge? He represents CD-2, not the portion of CD-2 that did the most to get him elected. And as a now-sitting rep of the district, he’s got to represent the entire district because if he pisses off a part of it too bad they’re going to rise to work against him, even if they sat on the sidelines during the 08 primary and general. I’m thinking for one example the high-tech business corridor down 36. They didn’t organize or press for anything during the CD-2 race because they felt like they didn’t need to, but it’s a constituency he has to keep his eyes on. Those are the types of businesses I’m sure on his mind when he’s fomenting against small biz taxes.
Far as inflicting damage on the party itself, maybe you’re right. There is a line between being independent of, and openly working against, the caucus and he’s learning it on the job. As I said in other comments, I’d rather have him learning this on the job than have JFG’s utterly predictable old timey politicianeering skills in there. (And would have rather had Will anyway.)
Polis, out for numero uno? Nawww, not possible. He’s shooting himself in his foot so often now it’s not even funny any more. How fast can you do the twist? Probably get re-elected, but it’s easy to see animosity growing when you’re so transparent.