zigaretten, thank you for researching that. Given the obvious slant I figured that the claims wouldn’t stand up to closer scrutiny.
If only we could rely on political types to actually tell us the truth then those of us here in the real world would have a much easier time of evaluating what the truth REALLY is. What I expected this to end up being was a case where the Dems proposed, for example, 20 billion for something, Bush proposed 15 billion, when last year’s budget called for 10 million. Then the Dems would say that Bush wanted to slash 5 billion from the program, or cut funding by 25%, or some such when actually he was proposing to grow it by 50% over the previous year. This is a hypothetical and not tied to any one program, btw. I’m not saying the Dems are the only ones that do this, but since they are the party of more govt spending, by and large the Republicans are going to be the ones proposing lower figures for programs. Even if you are a leftist and believe in all this spending, you have to admit that it is intellectually dishonest to call a proposal to actually increase spending “slashing” the budget or “proposes massive cuts in spending” or the like.
Not to hijack, but perhaps you can point out to me in the Constitution where the Fed is actually supposed to provide all these services that you are crying about in the first place?
Disgusting! Disgraceful! Was there every any assessment of the civilian casualties that resulted?
Yes, elucidator, there was.
It was mostly Iraqi civilians who died because Clinton lobbed a bunch of missiles into Iraq in an attempt to avoid or dely his impeachment.
Said impeachment was, of course, for lying under oath, not for blowjobs.
Regards,
Shodan
I would submit that this phenomenon is hardly unique to liberals. Your characterization of non-conservative arguments is also pretty much a caricature. To wit:
The war is counterproductive to our short- and long-term interests.
This is not a problem per se. If the means he employs to accomplish that goal fuck over everybody else, however, I’m not gonna be happy. You happy that the guy’s cutting the shit out of DoDDS schools? Awful tough to use a private school voucher in Korea or Germany, isn’t it?
. . . with right-wing ideologues who threaten to trash our civil rights and liberties.
Fuckin’-A, bubba! We just started getting our massive national credit card under control, and now this idiot is running up more debts all over the place and screwing the country for decades to come. Way to go, George!
It’s a long-time political tactic to say that “Politician X is against (education, health care, senior citizens, cute widdle babies etc.)! He voted against (funding bill/pork/other politician’s wasteful pet project)!!” Much of the link cited in the OP smells of this tactic.
“We just started getting our massive national credit card under control, and now this idiot is running up more debts all over the place and screwing the country for decades to come. Way to go, George!”
Yep.
As am I. I’m actually in agreement, at least tentatively, with many items on the list, but I’ve never been a fan of the “my or the highway” or “my country right or wrong” type mentalities. Say your piece, then let someone else talk. The silent majority is only silent because they can’t get stage time from the damn vocal minority. If the silent majority weighs in, I’ve no doubt that we’d see some of them support both sides, or come up with another viewpoint entirely. To my mind this is a good thing. The vocal groups assume they have a large percentage of the silent group backing them up. I think we’d all be suprised if we let the silent group speak for itself. Now, wether or not they ever will, that’s another question, but it should be part of our duty to help make the stage available for them if they should choose to speak.
Enjoy,
Steven
Do you vote, Airman Doors?
:eek:
Sorry for the hijack - but what???
I knew about the BJ, and the cigar incident, but that last “act”? Were there actually media reports stating something that explicit?
A two-faced politician, Egads!
Boy oh boy, I never would have guessed that was possible. I wonder if this first ever example of inconsistency on the part of a politican will do anything to damage the flawless reputation of 100% consistency enjoyed by politicians throughout history.
You’ve certainly blown the lid off of this. Who would have ever thought is was even possible that a politician could say one thing and do another?
Well, you’ve convinced me. I’m resigning as a Republican and joining the Democratic party. I don’t always agree with those Democrats, but I can’t abide inconsistency. Say what you want, the one thing that’s always held steady has been the flawless integrity and absolute consistency of Democratic politicians.
Where do I sign?
Hey, at least give him credit for adding a novel twist. Now it’s “Blow job! Rim job! Blow job! Rim job!”
Recall when Law and Order tried to turn Lewinsky into a verb? The family came out vehemently against that. Perhaps we need to be careful, although Monica’s Law works fine, I suppose. We could call it Godwin’s Orallary.
But said missile lobbing was because the UN ordered its weapons inspectors out of Iraq. Because Iraq wasn’t cooperating with them.
Perhaps Clinton should have started a war instead, eh?
Well, if we can get past the “blowjobs” and back to the OP; here’s some more info on Impact-Aid:
In 1990 there were approximately 2,200,000 men and women in uniform. Today there are approximately 1,400,000 (year 2000 figure). That’s a decrease of 36%.
In 1990 Impact-Aid had a budget of $717 million. In 2001 (Clinton’s last budget) it stood at $993 million. This is an increase of 38% overall or about 4.8% per year.
Even if Bush gets a 12% reduction in fiscal year 2004 the budget will still be $1.26 billion. This is an increase of 27% over Clinton’s last budget or 9.0% per year.
It’s also an increase of 76% over 1990 when, you’ll recall, the military was much larger.
Assuming that soldiers today have about the same number of children as they did in 1990, this means Impact-Aid will be providing almost three times as much per child as was spent in 1990. And again, that’s assuming that Bush actually gets the cut that he’s asking for which, as the article in my previous post noted, is very unlikely.
Not too shabby.
Now to the second point raised by the “Caught On Film” site:
Note that even this site doesn’t claim that Bush actually cut funds, just that he wanted to create a “new” program while getting rid of some old programs (I’m assuming they are talking about Bush’s proposals to cut funding to the COPS program).
What they don’t mention is that Bush was actually proposing increases of much more that $3.5 billion, much of which was relevant to “first responders” and to making up for reductions in the COPS program. According to Firehouse.com Bush’s proposal involved increasing the homeland defense budget by a total of $18.2 billion which would have included, amongst other thing:
1………”$3.5 billion to help ``first responders’’ such as firefighters, police and rescue squads. The money would go for personal protective equipment, emergency medical gear, detection equipment for biological and chemical agents, communications and other items. It also could be used to conduct more frequent terrorism drills, improve emergency communication systems, and set up a new Homeland Security Corps.”
2………”$5.9 billion to fight bioterrorism………big infusions of cash would pay for research and development, state and local health systems, federal stockpiles for treating victims, and improved communications.”
3………”$420 million to study bioterrorists and ways to fight biological weapons.”
4………”Some $851 million would be set aside to help the government respond to a bioattack”
5………”$10.6 billion for protecting borders……”
6………”722 million to improve communication among federal agencies and with states and other jurisdictions…”
Now there you have almost $22 billion with a lot of overlap. It is very unclear to me how one can argue that some $1 billion in cuts was made in order to fund one or another particular portion of this new budget.
This is true, but is it a fair representation of what happened? Again from Firehouse.com:
For the record, the $150 million was included in a program known as the “FIRE Act.” In 2002 (the year in question) FIRE Act grants totaled $360 million (without the $150 million).
In 2003 grants were increased to $750 million and they are slated to get $900 million in 2004.
Bush is looking more and more one-faced to me.
Yep. And guess what? In 1996, I voted for Clinton, believe it or not. What a mistake that was. It’s one that I repeated in 2000, although in retrospect, if I knew then what I know now I wouldn’t have voted at all, because I sure as hell didn’t want Gore.
I suppose you’re going to try to tell me that I’m partially at fault for this, right? I admit it freely. Or maybe that I shouldn’t vote if I don’t trust politicians to keep their promises, maybe? I exercise my right to vote every chance I get, and just like everyone else, I go with optimism that things will be different every time, and become disillusioned later.
So, that being said, find something else to try to divert the topic, if you please.
That’s a depressing statement. And why we keep electing idiots into the White House.
My wife insists on not voting, and I try to convince her with the above argument, but somehow she just doesn’t get it.
The thing is, politicians are just human beings applying for a job. Look at them that way, and you won’t be too disappointed.
Oh well. Some people never grow out of idealism for some reason.
No, I’m going to ask how you choose between politicians if you think they are all big liars.
Assuming that some of the programs I like were cut (and that’s a rather large assumption considering zigaretten’s outstanding posts), I admit I’m disappointed. Having said that, I’m sure Bush (and Clinton, and Bush the Elder, and Reagan and Carter, etc.) would love nothing more than to fully fund everyone’s pet programs and to live up to all their campaign promises, if for no other reason than just to increase their chances of re-election.
Unfortunately, that’s not possible. Budgets – even proposed budgets – are typically the result of bargaining on the Hill amongst hundreds of Congressmen/women and interest groups because of a pragmatic realization that the government has a limited supply of money. One of Carter’s failures (in my opinion) was that he was largely unwilling to make the bargains necessary to enact the more important pieces of his legislative plans. Is that evidence that a truly principled man can’t be successful in the Oval Office? Maybe. But I think it’s certainly evidence that the Big Cheese has to be willing to make cuts in some areas to make advances in others.
This applies equally to both Reps and Dems.
Assuming that some of the programs I like were cut (and that’s a rather large assumption considering zigaretten’s outstanding posts), I admit I’m disappointed. Having said that, I’m sure Bush (and Clinton, and Bush the Elder, and Reagan and Carter, etc.) would love nothing more than to fully fund everyone’s pet programs and to live up to all their campaign promises, if for no other reason than just to increase their chances of re-election.
Unfortunately, that’s not possible. Budgets – even proposed budgets – are typically the result of bargaining on the Hill amongst hundreds of Congressmen/women and interest groups because of a pragmatic realization that the government has a limited supply of money. One of Carter’s failures (in my opinion) was that he was largely unwilling to make the bargains necessary to enact the more important pieces of his legislative plans. Is that evidence that a truly principled man can’t be successful in the Oval Office? Maybe. But I think it’s certainly evidence that the Big Cheese has to be willing to make cuts in some areas to make advances in others.
This applies equally to both Reps and Dems.