Every election cycle brings supposed "mandates" from the people. Those elected by even the narrowest of margins somehow come to the conclusion that they've been given a mandate to do one particular thing... usually a thing that they themselves want to do, not associated with the reason they got elected.
Case in point... IL just elected Pat Quinn as governor. He was the Lt Gov when Rod was ousted and stepped into the governorship to complete Rod's term. He BARELY got elected on Tuesday (slimmest margin of victory in nearly 30 years) and now says he's been given a mandate by the people to raise taxes. WTF? Where do these idiots get this stuff?
Got any mandates running around in your back yard? Were they real or imagined?
Well let us look at his program. The repubs have been preaching fiscal responsibility for 30 years while they ran up the national debt. Now that someone wants to balance the Ill budget and pay off some of its bills he is nuts. How do you supply funding to the small governments if the state government is 20 billion dollars in debt. The only way is to raise taxes AND cut spending where possible.
with the anti gay marriage sentiment around the country, are man dates really viable in relation to politicians
0 Replies
JPB
2
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Sat 6 Nov, 2010 10:57 am
@rabel22,
Oh, I'm all for deficit reduction by a combination of reduced spending (mostly) and moderate tax increases. Not the 33% tax increase that our new Gov has been pushing, but I'm more supportive of even that than borrowing to pay the bills. No, I'm talking about "mandates". Quinn won by 0.5% of the 3.6 million votes cast. The main difference between the two was on how to reduce the deficit (spending cuts without a tax increase vs some spending cuts with a 33% tax increase). I don't see how winning an election by 19,000 out of 3.6 million votes can in any way be deemed a "mandate".
You gotta love these guys (and gals) and the mandates they think they've been given. About half were probably elected on the basis of being perceived to be slightly less sleezy than their opponents.
There's no mandate, only the message that we are watching. If we don't like what they are doing, we will vote them out, too.
You gotta love these guys (and gals) and the mandates they think they've been given. About half were probably elected on the basis of being perceived to be slightly less sleezy than their opponents.
There's no mandate, only the message that we are watching. If we don't like what they are doing, we will vote them out, too.
Indeed. Unfortunately, all too many people didn't watch much over the last .... decades, really. The pendulum swinging from one side to the other isn't a mandate for either side to continue with politics as usual. It's a sign (I hope) that we've finally started to pay attention to the details.
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