SUBJECT: SHOULD THERE BE TAX CUTS IN THE TIME OF WAR?
While I will take tax cuts anytime, anyway I can get them, Clinton made a clear argument that historically, there are not tax cuts in the time of war in the history of our country.
Dole’s response was to make some glib remarks about how the Democrats want the White House, and suggested they both donate their tax cuts to the Clinton library.
Dole threw in an analogy as to how life isn’t always an “either/or” situation, in that we don’t have to choose between fighting Iraq or Al Qaeda, since we just captured Sheik Mohammed. How this relates to “tax cuts OR war” was not clear, and Clinton countered that leadership is about making choices.
Overall, “guns or butter” is kind of a dry, boring subject that frankly I don’t care much about, and it is hard to judge debating qualities in 90 seconds.
However, Clinton was more to the point, and while I agree with Dole, Clinton wins my debating vote because he stayed with the subject.
Lets take someone who is charming and have him say something I totally disagree with. Then have someone who is totally un-charismatic and have him say something I totally agree with, and say it poorly at that.
Ugh.
Clinton did lie a few times though, and Dole never did.
The tax cuts two years ago were huge. (they were small and haven’t even really taken effect yet.)
We’re stronger now than in the 1991 gulf war. (Our forces are are less now than then. Divisions we had then no longer exist.)
The deficits we are currenlty running are because of the tax cuts.
(It’s the economy, stupid!)
Nearly half of the tax cuts went to the top 1%. (This is true, but misleading. The rich pay most of the taxes, the share they got was in proportion to how much they pay.)
Bush is making cuts in education and homeland defense. (Cite, please, Mr. President )
So, since Clinton was dishonest in most of what he said, I would have to give the debate to Dole, even though he was clearly the less convincing, and coherent, of the two.
I suppose Bill can’t say anything without the right claiming he’s a liar.
If the cut is made permanent it will be huge. Unless of course you don’t believe 1.35 Trillion to be huge, then I suppose it just a matter of semantics. However, Clinton never did say that the cut was “huge”. He said: "We’re already running big deficits thanks largely to the tax cut two years ago ". In this article in Slate you’ll see that the Budget office admits it.
I believe this to be an accurate statement. Our satellite guided bombs are much more accurate than the laser guided ones used in Gulf I. Also they’ve developed much better military vehicles for desert warfare. The military is no longer tied to tracked vehicles, which are not ideal to desert conditions. The new vehicles are not tracked, they have tires, and were designed specifically for desert warfare. There are also these really cool non-tracked missile launchers. We have increased night-vision capabilities, and new M-16 scopes. We are far more mobile than we were in 1991, which means we require fewer troops.
He said “the cuts made two years ago.” He was clearly referring to them, not any future cuts.
Go and listen to it again.
He says "We’re already running big deficits thanks largely to the huge tax cut two years ago ".
I just listened for the third time. He is saying the word huge when referring to the tax cuts two years ago.
There will always be new technology advancements in the military when looking at a 12 year time period. Does this mean that the military is always stronger? No. This is to be expected. If the numbers of units available is dramatically less than it can be said it is “weaker”. Is it accurate to say that the state of the military in the US now is stronger than it was in the peak of WWII? I guess literally it is, but not if you factor in the “inflation” of growing technologies as compared with other countries.
Almost as babyish as stamping your foot and asserting stuff with no proof and then casting aspersions on the maturity of anyone who disagrees with you.
hmmm, all of those links still work for me. But here are some quotes from the links:
The 1.35 million dollars were huge cuts made two years ago. They simply haven’t been made permanent. Do you have better information? Do you not find 1.35 million to be huge?
So you admit that the military is indeed stronger than it was in 2001, but it’s not as strong as you would like it to be.
So now your argument is not that he lied, but that you don’t like the way he framed the truth.
Why does everyone remember “Jane, you ignorant slut” but not “Dan, you pompous swine-ass”?
Look, guys, if you want to actually understand the issues, you won’t get it from a staged 3-minute swapping of sound bites. This is an entertainment feature on an entertainment show.
PS: I do love the way that the military, which was so brutally gutted by the traitor Clinton that it left the nation defenseless, is now strong enough to defeat all the world’s bad guys and intimidate everyone else. Nice job Bush did reversing that problem in only 2 years, with hardly anyone noticing, isn’t it?
I’m sorry, but you will not call Bill Clinton a traitor while you extole the virtues of Bush who throws the Constitution out the window every chance he gets.
The cuts in the military were begun under Bush Sr. and were continued under Clinton with the approval of a republican congress. And speaking of “traitors,” let’s not forget that Junior deserted his military division during wartime.
He was referring to last week’s Saturday Night Live, which featured Dan Akroyd returning to lampoon the Clinton/Dole point-counterpoint segment. Akroyd delivered the well-known line on that show. Also, I think people remember Akroyd’s line because it was always delivered at the start of his rebuttal.
Not a highjack:
I think there’s a difference between disagreeing with Clinton and calling him a liar. (Well, he is a liar, but not in this case).
