Sunday School 11/11/12

The Sunday talk shows had the fiscal cliff, the Petraeus scandal, and more. 

First, this was the best from Face the Nation (CBS). Host Bob Scheiffer, commenting on the election and money, talked first about Linda McMahon, who lost for the second time in the race for senate in Connecticut, after spending $100 million. Schieffer, again, was right on the money (pun intended): 

And what about that Las Vegas casino owner, Sheldon Adelson? How do you think he feels? He poured sixty million dollars into eight super PACs. That's a record for political contributions. But not one of his eight candidates won. But he's from Vegas. He knows it's all a roll of the dice anyway. I have never been one to tell people how to spend their money. It is their money. They can spend it as they choose and the Supreme Court says they can spend all of it on politics now, if they like. But I can remember the days when rich people gave their extra cash to charity. They actually sometimes saw some great results.

Over on NBC's Meet the Press, Senators Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Tom Coburn (R-OK) chatted about the fiscal cliff.  Schumer talked about how the Senate got the message in 2010 on cutting revenue, bot offered this in relation to the House and revenue:

We never really get real revenues because people believe in some things like dynamic scoring, sort of a counterintuitive view that if you cut taxes you will get deficit reduction and increased government revenues. It doesn’t make sense. I call it Rumpelstiltskin, after the gnome who turned straw into gold. It’s a fairy tale. So we need the Republicans to do in 2012 what we did in 2010. We hear the mandate, continue to cut spending, but they have to hear the mandate, real revenues, not this kind of stuff like dynamic scoring that Speaker Boehner did mention.

Rumpelstiltskin?  Didn't he stomp his foot so hard he fell into an abyss? And wasn't it his right foot?  Is Schumer on to something here?

This Week (ABC) saved the best conversation for the round table discussion. During a discussion on why Mitt Romney didn't win,  George Stephanopolous asked Congressman Aaron Schock (R-IL) about young voters, the under -30 demographic which went for Obama.  In response, Schock offered this:

We have got to do a better job with young people, we've got to a better job with women, but the group that we really have to zero on I believe is the Latino community, a group that really should be voting for Republicans to the degree we take a leadership role on the issue of immigration. And I think it makes sense for Republicans to get out in front on immigration, because it's a broke government program. And who better to fix a broken government program than the Republican party. 

Right... Who better?