11-03-2016, 03:56 PM
(11-02-2016, 06:24 PM)Midwest Spy Wrote: If the Dems take back the senate... how did Billy Joel sing it back in 1977?
You can pay Uncle Sam with the overtime.
Is that all you get for your money?
Tax, spend, tax, spend, tax...
I think there's a good chance of the Democrats taking back control of the Senate and I sure hope they do.
Several of the 24 Senate Republican incumbents up for re-election are going to lose to their Democratic challengers and the 10 Democrat incumbents up for re-election are all going to keep their seats, no doubt about it, in my opinion.
Currently, the Senate is split 54 / 46 in favor of Republicans. The Democrats have a real shot at winning 4 of the current Republican seats, maybe more. Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Indiana, North Carolina, and New Hampshire look like real possibilities for Democratic challengers. I see a lot of talk about Rubio losing Florida, but I think he's safe, personally.
If the Dems win 5 or more of current Republican seats, regardless of who's elected President, they'll take over the Senate majority.
If the Dems win 4 and Hillary is elected, majority goes to the Democrats, with Kaine being the tie-breaker. If the Dems win 4 and Trump is elected, majority stays with the Republicans, with Pence as the tie-breaker.
I wish the Democrats had a shot at 60 Senate seats or more to prevent the possibility of Republican senators obstructing a full Supreme Court if Clinton is elected, but don't think there's any way in hell that's gonna happen.
Anyway, according to the plans they've put forth, you might see less spending and debt under a Clinton presidency than a Trump presidency, regardless of which party rules the Senate.
Trump wants to cut everyone's taxes from where they are today and expand some areas of government bigly, which would substantially increase the debt. The latest iteration of his proposal says he'll cut 70% of economic regulations to help cover the deficit. I don't think that's realistic, personally, and most non-partisan economists agree that Trump's plans will be worse for the country fiscally than Clinton's. What he's proposed is definitely 'outside' existing Republican and Conservative conventional wisdom.
Clinton wants to keep taxes about the same for everyone but the top 10% (who'd see tax hikes), expand some areas of government, pay for those expansions and maybe some of the current debt with the increased taxes, and either leave a large portion of the existing debt about where it is or pay it down in some currently unspecified way (I haven't seen debt reduction addressed succinctly by either Clinton or Trump so far).