You have singled out from Bob’s detailed response the items about tax credits for college tuition and the assault weapons ban. Should we take that as an indication there is little to dispute about the other items in the list? 'Cuz in the context of voting within an essentially two-party, either-or system, that still spells 5 yeas and only 2 nays in favor of JFK.
Your justifiable self-pride in managing to pay for your own higher education is a sentiment many of us share. I am attempting to do the same now at the ripe old age of 31. I supported my wife’s way through grad school by managing an international consulting firm, and now she has a biomedical research job that can support me going back to school. However, because of funding cuts to the Stafford and Pell grant programs, there is little likelihood I will be able to finish school without going more deeply into private debt. As a result, not only will I take longer to obtain my teaching certification because I must work part-time and attend school part-time, I will also be even more in debt when it’s all over. The public school system will continue to be one qualified educator short until I enter that work force, class sizes will continue to grow because of teacher shortages, and more kids will receive less education for a longer stretch. So rather than a “tax break” for people who pay for their own education, or a “handout”, you might consider tax credits for people who spend their hard-earned dough to educate themselves more of an investment than an “entitlement”. As Bob rightly points out, there is a cascading positive effect from investment in education. Better educated people get better jobs and invent new things that create even more jobs which raises payroll and tax revenues which are invested in things that make life better for everybody…yadah, yadah, yadah, infinity.
Contrast that with a REAL tax break - corporations that employ American workers, that manufacture on American soil, that profit from American consumers - but since the officially incorporated offices of said company has an address in Lucerne, Switzerland or Grand Bahama, they do not pay a single dime of tax revenue into the U.S. government that maintains the infrastructure that company depends upon to run it’s plant. And guess what - if the U.S. government ever tried to close the tax loophole for offshoring, the company in question would be more likely to pack it’s bags and relocate to India or Singapore and shut down their more costly American operations. This is not a hypothetical - the firm I managed re-incorporated from Delaware to Switzerland for precisely these reasons - the firm’s partners did not want to pay taxes on profits so they routed everything through Switzerland and paid themselves out of a third-party intermediary corporation. All this while our client base consisted of exclusively American companies and every single one of our employees was an American. And guess who told them how to do all this? - their CPA, who asserted it was a common practice and perfectly legal.
Firearms regulation is always a touch issue. Some parts of the world, strict regulation makes sense (esp. urban areas). Other regions have less of a history of weapons abuse. I think the most reasonable argument is to equate firearm possession with any other citizen privilege, like requiring insurance if you’re going to drive a car or having a permit to hunt deer. There’s a very significant difference between saying “NO - you CANT’T have a gun” and “the Constitution says it’s OK to have a gun, but if we’re going to require motorcyclists to wear helmets, drivers to have licenses and insurance, and hunters to have permits, it only makes sense that we should make a minimum effort to insure that only demonstrably responsible people own firearms that, quite honestly, are not really intended for anything other than putting big holes in things.”
It is possible that you are a single-issue voter that places firearms at the top of the public policy heirarchy, in which case you are entitled to your position. But your considered responses didn’t come across as a single-issue ideology.
IRAQ I agree that a new President may find it easier to withdraw from Iraq. But, Johnson and Nixon both kept up our presence in Vietnam irregardless of that conflict’s popularity at home. Just because Kerry is campaigning on it now, does not mean it will happen should he get elected. He did vote for the war afterall.
PRESCRIPTION DRUGS I see no reason to think that Kerry will be able to strongarm insurance and drug compaies any better than Bush or Clinton did. Does he have some sort of magic charm that will allow him to succeed where others have failed?
TERRORISM Where will the money that Kerry will give to the local communiteis come from?
There is three, but I can’t speak effectively about them. Not effectively for this place anyway…
I’m not sure if I like the tax credit idea or not. I though I mentioned that. It took me 9 years of working and going to school part time to get my degree.
As far as countries moving out of the country, how that can be blamed on Bush I still don’t understand. This has been going on throughout the 90’s and continues today. It’s a bad situation, but to think that Kerry will have the magic solution is wishfull thinking in my opinion.
This is probably not the correct area for a gun control discussion, I only raised the issue to show my contempt for both Bush and Kerry. But when grandiose statistics are thrown out there that are easily defeatable, I can’t help myself.
I think I am a multi issue voter, but firearms truly are most important to me. Many/most on this board don’t agree and probably wont understand, but I can live with that. Thank you for mot insulting me for my beliefs. It is very refreshing.
When the EMPEROR demands extraordinary powers to protect THE PEOPLE, diminishing their individual rights (Patriot Act), and subjugating them to HIS moral dictates (What is Marriage!), it?s not a far leap to use those powers against the people HE purports to protect.
This is a historical fact, from the oldest emperor of China, Egyptian Pharaohs, Alexander, Constantine, and of recent times, Hitler? and no less dangerous, GWB.
Can?t happen here? Are folks really that mislead and blind?
Social and political power isn?t about weekend game for loyal fans just because they?ve always been fans. Take a more thorough look.
Realistically, I don’t think there’ll ever be a way to know that without hard evidence. I’m no supporter of Bush, but I rather doubt it. There may be lots of evidence that there could have been a good chance. Yet there were 19 men they had to stop by that morning; if 3 or 4 terrorists slipped through the net, there may have been no way to avert disaster.
The intelligence community had been disjointed for a long time, and lack of a coordinated effort made it possible to have many pieces of the puzzle without a way to put it together. It’s unlikely that Gore would have been a bulldog prior to 9/11 about fixing gaps between the FBI, CIA, etc.
Now if you were asking that if the invasion of would have happened Iraq, we might have a much different answer, although there was so much concern about Iraq under Clinton’s watch, I bet the question of invasion would have at least been raised under Gore’s.
But with this administration, there is a pretty good chance that the invasion of Iraq was inevitable even without 9/11.
JXJohns, I’m still looking for some reliable stats on deaths with assault weapons. As you’re probably aware, there are a lot of sites that distort the stats on both sides. I don’t have a ton of time for this sort of thing, so it might have to wait for the next gun control thread. I still find it baffling that single issue gun voters will forgive Bush for supporting the AWB ban but not Kerry. Personally, my view on guns is that if you want to sleep with a pistol under your pillow, fine. Knock yourself out. And if you’re a hunter and need rifles or shotguns to pursue your sport, fine. Having had many close encounters with deer while driving, I appreciate the herd management that hunters provide. If you think you need the capability to fire 100 rounds in ten seconds (not being a gun person, I have no idea how realistic 10 rounds/sec is), then we have a problem.
Getting back to why Bush is bad for America, I think it’s a matter of priorities. The Iraq war could have been avoided, Hussein was cooperating with the inspectors. That money could and should have been spent better elsewhere. Bush’s raids on the treasury have not created jobs. He’s spending too much time worrying about gay marriage. He’s just trying to focus on that because his administration is producing more gay marriages than jobs. As Al Sharpton points out, it isn’t important who you sleep with. It’s whether you have a job to go to when you get out of bed.
I voted for Dole in 96, cause I was a repub then and Bush in 2000 cause I wasn’t fond of Gore and I feel about the same with Kerry, but I’m voting for him anyway.
Dean fascinated me, the awareness he had of younger voters and the internet for campaigning, and just his willingness to stand against bull was interesting. Most democrat pols primarily talk about issues of interest to older people so its hard to get excited about them. Its kinda like taking medicine at this point, might not be fun to vote for Kerry, but its better than Bush and voting libertarian is wasting my vote.
Bob, this is exactly my point. The rifles banned in the AW legislation do NOT fire 100 rnds a second. I know you were only making a point, and I understand that. The rifles that have been banned are many times the same as huting rifles other than their outward appearances. Much other legislation has been in place for decdes that deals with automatic (machine guns) weapons for decades. I’ll say this one more time. The legislation that we are talking about looks at a rifle and determines wether it is good or bad by things such as a boynett lug, a retractable stock, or a pistol grip.
None of these things make a rifle inheirently more dangerous than one that does not have the features on it. Rather, they look somewhat more scary or menacing and have been a target for the liberals for years now. If they want semi-auto guns banned, then push some legislation up that does exactly that. The powers that be will vote on it and either it will pass or not. This is feel good leglislation that accomplishes nothing. No I am not in favor of banning semi auto guns either.
By the way, I am not giving Bush a pass on the AWB stuff either. Within two years of Clinton’s reign, the Brady bill and the assault weapon ban were signed into law. Under Bush’s reign, nothing has been enacted that even came close to tampering with MY gun rights. I like that, and even though Bush says he will sign the AWB if it reaches his desk, he has yet to call or Congress or the Senate to give him the legislation. Perhaps a shrewd move to show “support” for the legislation, the whole time knowing he will never have to act on it? I don’t know. That is my hope, and what I am basing my vote on. I have seen Kerry’s voting record on gun control issues. In my mind it is not pretty.
I said earlier, I am not going to defend Bush on his actions, especially those that you have mentioned. Between the two candidates for '04 I see very little difference. This isn’t something I made up either, many others see the same thing. So I have chosen to latch on to the gun control issue as my defining point. I’ll say it again, if Bush manages to sign the AWB into law again, he will not get my vote. I’ll leave that spot blank on my ballot.
Well, gun stats aside, I think the issue that a lot of the people that want to ban or restrict guns fail to see is that the type of people that would do harm to others are really not going to care about whether that particular firearm is illegal or not.
The problem is , as stated before, is all this legislation is really is just “feel good”, if they enforced the gun laws we have now, it would be more than enough I believe.
All it really does is restrict law abiding folks further.
I don’t think was very cooperative at all with the inspectors, it seemed to me all he did was toy with them, playing a cat and mouse game, and he got called on it.
I also believe also that the economy was on the way down before Bush ever got into office anyway, it is a cycle. I agree he is worrying too much about the gay marriage thing though, I wish he would concentrate on other things first.
Please explain who Kerry would have gotten France, China, and Russia to agree to this war. Saying that Kerry would also have invaded Iraq, only he would have done it better, is false. If Kerry had been in office, Saddam would stilll be in power. The real question is, “Is it better that Saddam was taken out Bush’s way, or would it have been better that he not be taken out at all?” That’s an honest question. Suggesting that Kerry would have magically rallied the world around an invasion of Iraq is not based in fact.
First of all, I’m no fan of deficits. But to suggest that the deficits are the result of Bush’s tax cut is disingenuous. It would be fair to say that the tax cuts added 100-200 billion to the deficit. If there had been no tax cut at all, there would still be huge deficits. And besides, Kerry agrees with the Bush tax cuts, other than the ‘tax cuts to the richest’. So let’s say Kerry would have had a tax cut half Bush’s. That means the deficit would be 50-100 billion less. Not such a big difference.
However, let’s continue down the list to see if the deficits would truly be better under Kerry.
Where does the money come from for this tax credit?
Where does the money come from for this tax credit?
Where does the money come from to pay the cities to beef up security?
You forgot a few other big ticket items Kerry is promising. Specifically, his support for universal health care. How much is THAT going to cost?
The debate over Kerry vs Bush is dishonest right now. The Kerry side wants to claim that under Kerry the world would be safer, the deficit lower, but lots more money would be poured into things that need to be done. This does not compute.
If I were a Republican, I’d still vote for Bush despite the fact that I disagree with him on a whole host of issues. I hate his big spending ways. I dislike his antipathy to biological science - stem cells, cloning, etc. I am distrustful of his faith-based ideas.
Nevertheless, he would get my vote for one reason: Because there is one overriding issue facing us today, and that is the war on terror. And as I see it, there are two fundamentally different camps on this. The ‘Kerry’ camp basically treats this like a police problem. Make arrests, find Bin Laden or anyone else who attacks you, put them up for trial, throw them in jail. This was the Clinton approach, and I think it would be carried further under Kerry.
The ‘Bush’ camp says that the war on terror is an actual war. Different than any other war, yes. But still a war. In this viewpoint, going after the war on terror as a police action is akin to solving your hornet problem by living next to a hornet’s nest but swatting hornets as they sting you. Better to get rid of the nest.
The confluence of international terrorist with rogue states capable of supplying them with vast sums of money and weapons of mass destruction poses a serious threat to us. The rise of radical islam and its willingness to get in bed with terrorists poses a serious threat to us. The conflict between radical islam, terrorists, and the west is going to be the defining issue of the next 20 years. The only person who could get my vote today is one who takes this issue seriously and has a plausible plan to deal with it. In my opinion, Bush does, and Kerry doesn’t.
I think that if we had been willing to spend another six months insisting that the UN go in with us, we would have worn down France, Russia, etc. Don’t forget, they had major investments there and I’m pretty sure we could have gotten them on board eventually, if for no other reason than to protect those investments. (in fact, I suspect this administration was hoping they’d give them up as they did so they’d be up for grabs). Upsetting the apple cart was the cause of their reluctance; they were going to balk until it was certain that everyone else agreed with us to go in if we needed to. And don’t forget, this administration created a lot of bad will between us and most of the other members of the UN, so they were less likely to be cooperative in the short run. I don’t think Gore or Kerry would have had that problem.
It’s been suggested that Saddam either did not realize that he did not know he actually did not have any more WMDs (unlikely) or that it was this bluff that kept him in power, since if the truth was discovered he would have been in a very weak position since everyone from his citizens to other Arab States to the UN to know he was easy to take down. However, even though he was cooperating with the inspectors 1) he could only go so far with this until his weakness was exposed, or 2) Saddam being Saddam could be eventually antagonized into doing something stupid and refuse further inspections of make the first aggressive move, thus creating the excuse for the UN to go to war against him.
So Saddam might have gotten kicked out even by a Dem. Believe it, they would have liked to have found a way to do it, and they may have after 9/11. However if Saddam stayed in power, he was in a very good box. It would have been regrettable for the Iraqi people, as it is for, oh, maybe the better part of a billion other people on the globe that live under similar tyranny. But what leads you to believe that America would have been less safe? If nothing else, we might still be doing inspections and finding nothing. He’d be making no progress and I think he might have eventually brought war down on his head anyway.
Worst of all with this administration was that anyone who tried to find the hint of an exit strategy found none. That was a big point of contention for many Americans before going into Iraq. Whatever it was, it began failing days after Saddam was thrust out of power and the looting (surprise! :rolleyes: ) went ballistic. Bush had reasons to go in there long before 9/11, and those reasons where the driving force behind his strategy. Gore / Kerry would have been unlikely to have alterior motives that would have put on those kind of blinders. They probably would have worked with the UN on some kind of exit stategy in public before going to war if necessary.
One difference is that one might consider why did the Clinton administration find it so crucial to put such a huge surplus in place? I bet they saw the bubble burst coming. Obviously, they weren’t going to SAY this, however had the surplus been grown as long as possible and then used to balance out the economy, we would have a minor deficit at worst. States and industry could have had the resources to recover much quicker than they did.
And then if the bubble somehow had not burst, they could have taken “the American people’s money” and maybe done something like, oh, pay back all of the people’s money that had been stolen out of Social Security. ANY surpluses we may come up with in the future should go there first, cause dammit, we’ve paid for it and it’s ours and SS should be kept viable as a safety net.
Well, we could start with some different budget cuts other than some we hear mentioned. For one, we could decide to eliminate nearly all of the insane, suicidal, black-hole-where-money-goes-to-die expenses of all our non-conventional weaponry by dismantling that stuff. That’s probably forty or fifty billion a year to start with. And that money spent produces nothing, unlike putting it in to education, health care, etc., etc. In fact it will be far more expensive for us if we ever use the product.
Obviously, this needs to be done multilaterally, and with full verification. It might take decades to get it down to a couple dozen warheads (I can’t see them fully eliminated, not in this age anyhow). There is that built in incentive of huge sums of money freed up for everyone that stocks these arms to begin with, and there are other direct and indirect incentives to do so. Lots of them.
We could also make a sweeping simplification of the tax code making it way too costly for corporations and super wealthy individuals to sneak their profits overseas to evade taxes. That might be at least tens billion a year.
And once the economy starts growing again, it’s been proven that in a few short years we can go from deficits to large surpluses. We don’t need oreven want to keep running surpluses, but why can’t we build them for a few years, “put some in the ban.”? Enough for the next bubble burst? Enough to slow runaway deficits with a cap on how far they can go before we are required to reduce them?
There is money available if we’re willing to tip some sacred cows.
This does not require all out war. Swat team / special forces type surgical strikes are needed. And how do you track these motherf*****s down without a lot of good old police work? Do you suggest lighting the yard alight with a flame thrower to eliminate the hornet’s nest? International cooperation is crucial. There is not a terrorist hiding under every bed, the way it was with the communists decades ago. Sure, the occasional cruise missile may be needed, but we don’t need to take nations down to catch a few hundred individuals. We’ve turned Iraq into a terrorist’s playground at this point and a breeding ground for years to come. Nice going, George.
Actually, economic growth in some of the poorest nations in the world could greatly reduce the number of terrorists as most contented people aren’t interested in dedicating their live to destroying opponents. And yes, I know that suicide bomber types tend to be educated middle-class ideologues, however the fewer poor there are being trampled on, the less fuel for some of their outrage. And a few less people that they might recruit.
Geez you guys, don’t you think this thread has derailed enough.
I did want to know how republicans feel about Bush, but of course, it’s turned into a Kerry vs. Bush vs. Clinton /Iraq WMD/Gun controll debate. I just wonder when someone’s gonna bring abortion to this thread.
It’s not as if we lack threads on those other issues.
There is something about the gay marriage issue and conservatism that I don’t understand. I know it’s been raised before but I don’t think this inconsistency can be pointed out enough.
Supposedly, the more politically conservative an American is, the more their position is that Government needs to keep their hands out off the people’s business as long as they’re not hurting anyone else. Yet of course, the big disconnect here is that some pretty extreme conservatives find it necessary to try and create an amendment to the Constitution and legislate whether people are able to marry or not. Indeed, if a polygamous marriage were set up to where all parties were in agreement on it, all children cared for, and all property issues fairly handled, why should they care even about that?
This tells me what they really mean is that “Gov’t has no right to tell you what to do as long as it doesn’t infringe on how I feel you how should be able to do it.”
Don’t these people lose sleep over this? When their President has given his seal of approval for camping down on people going about their own business?
Oh yeah. I’ve heard on the radio some people seriously worry that gay marriage is the slippery slope that will eventually lead to marriages between people and pets. Unbelievable. What kind of people are they aquainted with that lead them to think anyone would do that? :eek:
I think snag did a fine job responding to Sam. I’ll just add a concurrent opinion.
I think there is a difference between lashing out at a convenient scapegoat and waging a just war. Bush knows full well that Saddam had zilch to do with 9/11, but does nothing to correct that popular misconception. Invading Iraq in the name of terrorism would have made as much sense as invading Sweden after Pearl Harbor. The Afghan war was entirely justified as there was a proven connection to Osama- had the focus remained on Bin Laden, none of us would have any quarrel with his handling of the war on terrorism.
I might believe that had not Bush argued so strenuously that the evil Clinton surpluses belonged to us and we had to take the money back. Republicans seem to believe that surpluses belong to everybody, but deficits are orphans.
All in the priorities. Had Bush pursued diplomatic pressure on Iraq, it would have been determined that the WMDs did not exist and this costly boondoggle need not have begun. Take that war money, and you’ve got plenty of cash to do what Kerry would like to do.
That’s obviously something we want to think long and hard about. I trust Kerry on this more than Bush, who managed to get a truly horrible prescription drug bill through Congress. To specifically prohibit the government from negotiating prices with the drug companies was stark raving nuts.
What evidence do you offer to prove this? Because it seems to me to be exactly the opposite. The U.S. had over 100,000 soldiers sitting on ships and in temporary billets around the area. This was not a stable situation. You get to a point where you have to pull the trigger or withdraw. And I saw NO evidence whatsoever that these countries were moving even slightly in the U.S.'s direction. in fact, it was the opposite. The amount of opposition to the U.S. both at home and abroad was rising. We now know that A) Saddam had paid off numerous figures close to the government’s of France, Russia, and oppositon in Britain (Galloway). B) Both France and Russia were violating sanctions against Iraq. C) France was playing a ‘let’s drag this out as long as we can’ game, hoping to force a stalemate the U.S. couldn’t afford.
I don’t understand this. How does getting them on board protect their investments, and if this were the case, why did they oppose the U.S. in the first place?
Everyone else DID agree. 34 different countries. In fact, the major source of opposition came from the countries that you say were waiting for the rest of the world to get on board. If France had supported the U.S., China would have abstained and so would Russia. France was dead set against this, and would have remained so. I see no possible scenario that would have led to France suddenly saying, “Okay, let’s go get Saddam.”
Hold it - the ‘bad will’ came BECAUSE of the negotiations to go into Iraq. If Gore or Kerry had made the same case, they would have received the same bad will.
I find it far more likely that the status quo would have continued. Saddam WAS in violation of Res. 1441, whether he had stockpiles of weapons or not. So he was going to continue the same old game of alternately balking, then relenting a bit when the pressure got too great, then balking some more…
This is the game he played for ten years, and the U.N. saw no need to act on it. The U.S. and Britain couldn’t even get U.N. approval to launch limited strikes in 1998, and Clinton and Blair had to go around the U.N. then. I find it baffling that you think the U.N. was looking for an excuse to go after Saddam - 16 violations of previous resolutions gave them all the excuse they needed. In fact, the U.N.'s modus operandi is to look for any excuse to NOT take any action.
No he wasn’t. He was in a box that was only maintained by the U.S. maintaining large forces in Saudi Arabia, which was destabilizing that country (remember OBL’s main complaint was that the U.S. was in Saudi Arabia). The sanction regime was crumbling. Numerous countries from Syria to France and Russia were violating it. In the meantime, the only way we could get him to agree to inspections at all was to park 100,000 troops on his doorstep - an action that could not be maintained indefinitely.
No, there wouldn’t have been any inspections at all. Unless you sent the troops there as Bush did. But the minute the troops were there, the clock started ticking. Once you have that kind of military presence located in temporary billets or on ships at sea, you have to either pull the trigger or go home. France knew this and so did Saddam. They were playing a stalling game - wait long enough, and the U.S. will be forced to withdraw. Then the inspections would have ended, the U.S. would have suffered a major loss of face, and Saddam would have been emboldened.
Which reasons do you think Bush had to go into Iraq that Gore or Kerry wouldn’t have had?
And what do you think their ‘exit strategy’ would have been, and how would it have differed from what Bush did?
What was the U.S.'s ‘exit strategy’ for invading Germany and Japan? How was it different from the exit strategy currently in place in Iraq? There is one, you know. it’s quite clear, and it’s underway. The first phase starts tomorrow, starting with an interim constitution. The next phase happens sometime in the next six to twelve months, when an interim Iraqi government takes control and the occupation ends. The next phase after that happens in Jan 2005 when full elections take place and the new, fully legitimate government of Iraq takes over.
In the meantime, forces will be drawn down from current levels to probably 75,000 or so. After 2005, the forces will probably be drawn down further to maybe 50,000 or so, which will be maintained for the foreseeable future, just as similar forces were maintained in Germany, Japan, Europe, and South Korea.
The Clinton administration didn’t ‘put the surplus in place’. The surplus happened because economic growth kept outstripping economic estimates. I will give Clinton credit for not going on an insane spending spree when the money rolled in, however.
EVERYONE saw the bubble burst coming. Alan Greenspan was warning about irrational exuberance in 1998. The bubble burst before Bush took office, y’know. The subsequent revenue collapse caused the first deficit before Bush made a single decision. The spending requirements of the war on terror made it worse. 9/11 caused consumer confidence and business investment to collapse, which choked off the recovery and led to two years of flat investment, low growth, and low job creation.
I don’t understand this point at all. Sure, if the bubble had not burst, and there had been no major terrorist attack, we would all be farting through silk. But that’s not reality.
You’re saying eliminate the nuclear deterrent? You think that’s a big waste of money? With China, Pakistan, and North Korea in the world? With Russia becoming more autocratic? To me, this is a perfect example of why Democrats are perceived as being soft on defense. Got money problems? There must be SOMETHING in the military budget we can get rid of…
Nothing aside from security, that is. And in the meantime, Bush increased the Dept. of Education’s budget by 43%, and it made ZERO difference.
Do you have any evidence that, say, China is willing to eliminate its nuclear deterrent in a verifiable way? Or is this just a pipe dream? I’d be interested in hearing your plan for eliminating nuclear weapons in the world. We seem to be having a hell of time just getting a backwater dictatorship like North Korea to agree.
So I take it you’re against all of those tax breaks that John Kerry is in favor of? The reason the tax code is so complex in the first place is because it is full of tax breaks put into place by pandering politicians eager to support their chosen way for businesses to act.
Wow. It’s ‘been proven’ that we can go from deficits to a surplus, so let’s just do it again! Who can argue against that?
I agree. But you’d better look at where the money goes in the federal budget, because I suspect that you’re in favor of most of those sacred cows. The vast majority of federal money goes to three things: A) The Military, B) Social Security, and C) Medicare. You will never cut the budget substantially unless you cut those three things. ALL of them.
You can jigger around with small programs here and there, but in the end you aren’t going to balance the budget unless A) revenues rise dramatically, or B) You reform entitlement spending. And that means increasing the retirement age and means-testing Social Security and Medicare. Since the baby boomers are about to retire, good luck with that.
Gonna send SWAT teams into sovereign countries like Syria and Iran? Surgical strikes in North Korea and Iran? Here’s the thing: You need the cooperation of these countries to get anything done. And you aren’t going to get it until they think that cooperating with you is smarter than not cooperating with you. Diplomacy with teeth is a lot better than diplomacy without it. Notice how cooperative Khaddafi became after Saddam was pulled from his hole? Syria is a lot less recalcitrant lately as well. North Korea is actually at the negotiating table. Iran has agreed to inspections. Do you think it is coincidence? Or possibly the result of the U.S. displaying the willingness to do whatever it takes, including overthrowing other goverments, in order to eliminate terrorism?
I never suggested eliminating police work. It’s just not sufficient by itself. Kerry, on the other hand, has a long history of being hostile to U.S. intelligence, and has shown the desire to cut it back significantly.
A few hundred individuals? Over 20,000 terrorists went through Bin Laden’s camps in the 1990’s. Tens of thousands more terrorists didn’t go through those camps. Hezbollah is larger than al-Qaida. The attacks going on in Iraq right now indicate several thousand terrorists on the lose, run by ansar al-Islam.
Now add in the terrorist sympathizers in various nations - Hundreds of thousands in Pakistan, Palestinians, the Wahhabists in Saudi Arabia, the remnants of the Taliban in Afghanistan, etc. This is NOT a small policing problem. You need to see the bigger picture. There is a new strain of fascism rising in the world, in the guise of militant Islam. It has the tacit cooperation of numerous governments. It has hundreds of millions of dollars in funds. Perhaps billions. al-Qaida and Bin Laden are not the start and end of this threat.
I agree with you here, and so does the Bush administration. The way I see it, the ‘hornets nest’ in question is the large collection of failed states, mostly in the Middle East. The people there are brutalized, stripped of their rights, and poor. The governments of these countries have made deals with Islamic extremists to keep the populations in check. Over the years this has given rise to a widespread movement of extremists who blame the west and Jews for their problems, and are quite willing to kill as many of us as they can.
The long term solution to this problem (the ONLY long term solution) is to eliminate the failed dictatorships. We need reform in the middle east. We need a zero tolerance program for dictatorships in the world. Democracy is the ultimate RAID can in this fight. Iraq was a start, and we can hope that its example will help other dictatorships to reform without invasion. If not, we’ll have to do it again.
But it’s not JUST poverty and oppression that causes suicide bombers, or else we would have been overrun with Ethiopian suicide bombers a long time ago. The difference in the middle east is that these groups have state sponsorship or oil money in the leadership, which allows them to buy extremely destructive weaponry, and also the radical Islamic background which gives them a legitimate (to them) violent outlet for their despair.
