I’m a Republican who voted for Gore and will probably vote for Bush.
As for Bush v. Dole, Dole was my favorite candidate of the last 20 years or so. Based on Bush’s 2000 campaign, I would have said that Dole is an internationalist who would stand up to the world’s worst regimes, while Bush is a wet noodle toady to Saudi lobbyists. However, Bush has proven himself to have a similar foreign policy to Dole’s.
Almost everything in Sam Stone’s recent post sounds good to me, except for the bit about zero tolerance for dictatorships. We need a little, but also need to make it clear which side we stand on.
My wife is a swing voter who will vote for Bush due to a trust factor and due to not liking Bush-haters. I myself was really turned off by the Clinton impeachment effort. It is true that there are Kerry haters out there, but I think that we have gotten back to a situation in which the Democrats are the more negative party.
Deficits? Hate 'em, and if Mrs. Clinton looks like a clone of Bill for 2008, I will consider her. But Kerry is no real deficit hawk.
Legal recognition of same-sex marraige? It’s a bad but probably inevitable idea that distracts from the real marriage and the family problem of our time, children growing up without two parents who care enough about each other and the kids to stay together through the hard times. Children need their fathers to live with them. So I adore the conservative Christians from afar. But the social issues would never decide my vote.
It’s really sad the number of people who are so afraid of the rabid wolf they’re told is just outside the door, that they’ll happily live under an alcoholic, paranoid sheriff to keep that wolf away.
There’s your cowboy analogy, since the Pubbies seem to love those so much.
I’m pretty confident that my odds of being killed in a terrorist attack are right up there with my getting struck by lightning while holding a winning Powerball ticket.
If there are terrorists behind every bush and tree, tell me why we don’t have copycats of the DC Sniper happening in 20 cities across the USA simultaneously. It would be extremely inexpensive, and all it would take would twenty men, twenty rifles, and twenty vehicles. Double it to forty and you can even have some (brilliantly, IMO) customized vehicles so that the shooter can be nearly invisible.
Sneak 20 men across the Mexican border (without telling them what they’ll be doing, in case they get caught), and you’re set.
Why hasn’t it happened? Because they CAN’T. How can I say that? Because if they could have, they would have. They wouldn’t be hoping to take out an American soldier or two in Iraq when they could kill a couple dozen civilians (a day) in the USA. Their sniping sprees would also cause proportionately massive economic damage as well, as we saw in DC. All for the cost of 20 rifles, 20 men, and 20 cars.
They blew their wad two and a half years ago. Will they be strong enough to do it again some day? Absolutely. Will they be successful? Probably. Will it matter who is in office when that day comes? Probably not. Accepting that, I prefer a president who will do good things to America, rather than bad things to everyone else.
The rabid wolf is out there, but he’s a lot weaker than you’re being told. And he’s a lot farther away. Thing is, every time you try to point the sheriff toward the door for yelling at your son or groping your wife, he’ll start ranting about how, if he’s gone, the wolf will get you!
Amazing the number of people who will believe him.
Oh man The Gaspode is going to be so annoyed with me!! I will respond to your questions as I have time to.
Well, asking what Kerry might have done in that situation is a bit unrealistic. All we can do is assume that he had been VP or had gotten the nomination in 2000. At best we can conjecture what the Democrats knew and what they might have done on the advice of the Clinton administration. In any case I think Gore or Kerry would have responded in a different fashion to the issues in Iraq than did the President.
As I stated before, I’m not certain that Saddam might not have invited invasion. As to whether the world would be in greater danger with him still in power, I think it’s becoming clearer that he made himself to be a far greater threat than he really was.
OK, I was getting a little ahead of myself. I believe Bush was right to accuse the UN of not holding it up Res. 1441. I applaud him on this, yet I think that Gore would have also argued after 9/11 that under 1441 that UN needed to insist on inspections. Gore understood Iraq’s threat. Clinton was very concerned about Iraq, it was pretty much the number one foreign affairs issue that he and his cabinet were concerned about according to Madeline Albright. This was the reason for lighting the fire under the UN.
I think the key difference in our points of view may come down mostly to the role of inspections and secondly how Bush handled the affair overall. In no small part, the hawks in Bush’s administration had been looking at ousting Saddam for many years. Bush was only a strong proponent of inspections until they started to come up empty on our best intelligence. Eventually he had to realize, this could undo his chance to invade Iraq with the UN. Most of the membership of the UN was right, there was not a critical need to go into Iraq at this time. My contention is that Bush would not allow inspections to play out, he would not consider a change of course. He set himself up in that he had a window of time whereby he had to go to war by March. Bush wanted to go in without question; there was no secret made of wanting a regime change. This created a political and logistical timetable that demanded that we go in by March lest there be a problem come re-election time.
The Democrats probably would have wanted to see the results of inspections.
Bush took it up on himself to put the number of troops US near the Middle East when he did. I bet Gore would have also placed some forces in the region if nothing else than to see what role Iraq, and the Middle East in general, would play after 9/11. But would he have committed as large a force if he was uncertain about invasion? The strategies could have been different. The build up could have been slower. The more Saddam resisted inspections, the larger the buildup. And it may have been more multilateral as well.
Part of a different strategy could have been to insist the UN also aid us in having troops staged against Iraq once Saddam first resisted inspections. Some of our troops might have been cycled out as additional UN troops were added. Other nearby nations that may not have allowed US troops in, might have hosted forces of other countries. Once it was more clear Saddam did not have WMDs and as we got a clearer picture of what was going on inside Iraq, some Arab nations may have been willing to do this over the summer of 2003 if inspections had been proceeding instead of being at war. We might have also over time demanded the UN give us some kind of support to offset our costs of staging against Iraq in some fashion.
Ultimately, even if we did not receive true, broad multilateral support for an invasion, if needed, we would have been able to go in under the auspices of the UN. This has not been the case. The Iraqi people would have known that the invasion was a UN mandate, not simply a US intervention as it has been regarded.
France and Russia had a responsibility to uphold 1441. They were also in a position to twist Saddam’s arm to allow inspections. It would have been their best bet. If no WMDs were found, their investments may have remained safe. If Saddam continued to hold out, then, if he resisted all attempts at inspections, the UN would have had no choice but to assist with the buildup of troops to enforce it and I believe the holdouts would be under moral indictment if they did not assist. So why didn’t they?
George Bush did not allow France and Russia much in the way of options. Everyone knew that under Bush an American invasion was inevitable, the rest were mostly mere formalities. Sure Bush would have liked the UN fully, multilaterally commited, if on his terms. But as it was,he was going in no matter what. This has been considered an American invasion by the world at large.
So, if France and Russia were dragging their feet, it was because that was the only choice they had at protecting investments. If there had more time to put pressure on them, and given a possible way out, they could have been pursuaded to make use of their leverage use to convince Saddam to open up without as many forces having to be committed to the area. France and Russia would have been ultimately been the bad guys in the eyes of the UN if they didn’t. And a deadline for invasion in the fall, after the summer heat would have been very reasonable, putting pressure on all parties to move it along…
If Saddam wasn’t in a good box, even before all eyes were upon Iraq, why was he not able to continue manufacturing WMDs in ten years time? Because we had some troops stationed in Saudi Arabia? Not really. It was mostly due to other things, such as sanctions, controlling his airspace, space based imagery, and whatever else did the job. He was powerless to exert any real influence outside of Iraq. He wasn’t even significantly involved in terrorism other then giving money to Palestinian suicide bombers. He’d been in a box for ten years and that was evident once we opened it up.
My overall point is, IMO the whole issue in Iraq was poorly handled. Much of it due to a determination to go into Iraq come hell or high water.
Is there a better place for me to continue this response so as to stop hijacking this thread?
The Democrats wouldn’t have simply handed the country over to Halliburton. We went in there in a mostly unilaterally way. Only now that things have spun out of hand has the Bush administration gone back to the UN asking for help moderating the growing crisis. No hosannas and flower petals in the street as were expected for the conquering saviors who couldn’t manage to at least string the infrastructure together in six months at least as well as Saddam did in a few weeks last time.
Of course, gee, what a surprise this was to the administration, that after 10 years of sanctions, it was falling apart; who would have thought it? But evidently they were surprised. Really, I’m sorry Sam, but I have to ask, WTF? It simply mystifies me that we were so unprepared. And I’m sorry, but again I feel this points to a deterministic viewpoint long on assumptions that ignored some obvious clues. Having listened for the better part of a year before the war to expert after expert that disputed the promises voiced by the Bushies before then, there have been only two things that have surprised me at all about Iraq. That is, the total and utter lack of evidence regarding WMDs, and that the war was over a few weeks sooner than I expected.
As for the outcome we are seeing, it’s exactly the sort of result I’d heard predicted over and over. Opposition voices called all the shots; they cleared the table in this regard. In other words, the Bush White House could have created an exit strategy based on dozens of these notifications made by people which were widely distributed on the radio, in the press, making speeches, and some on the Internet. And of course there were those in the Pentagon saying the same things. But they chose not to listen.
So it wasn’t a good idea to have a surplus that that time? Obviously the Bushies didn’t see the bubble burst or they did not understand the value of using a surplus to shield the economy through their haze of ideology. That surplus could have been a buffer against the worst of the burst.
I’m not saying tax cuts were a bad idea, but the scale and timing of them have been largely ineffective. Yes, we’ve had a few months of a powerful economic resurgence. This was predicted by all of the president’s critics as well. But will it last? Just this morning, I’ve heard that so far the refunds the IRS has been returning to middle America are far lower than expected; if I remember correctly, an average expected refund of $250.00 is coming out to be an average of about $90.00. Some of this is due to people refinancing mortgages. And some expect that those getting larger refunds will only spend about a third of it, the rest going to pay down debt or into savings.
Historically since FDR, we have had a growth in GDP, so that even when tax breaks were given, such as in the Reagan years, our receipts on all taxation has pretty much continue to grow at a brisk pace. However, the GDP under GWB is the lowest it has been since Ford, where it remained mostly flat, and Nixon’s modest gain, which is about the same that GWB can expect at the end of his term barring a phenomenal recovery this year. Only Hoover’s watch was worse - a decline - since the GDP was officially recorded. We’re going to be in a precarious position soon with record tax cuts if the GDP doesn’t make big gains, right quick. Otherwise, we’re going to see the first honest-to-God loss of total revenues and GDP since Hoover.
I believe Kerry is becoming more concerned about the situation. What he’d do about it is anyone’s guess. Still, wiping out the huge tax evasion schemes would provide far more funding, don’t you think? This would also provide incentives for smaller businesses that find it hard to compete against mega corps. with these artificial advantages. And there is growing public support for this. More people are getting pissed off about it in these lean times. There is big money getting away there and it’s not fair.
My point is that it can be done if the political will and discipline is there to do it. It also requires a certain level of revenue. With tax cuts as far as the eye can see, and the huge war and rebuilding burdens we face, I do not expect to see another.
The largest periods of GDP growth occurred during periods of brisk revenue intake (due in no small part to a growing tax base created by higher GDP) and pretty aggressive spending. Ususally with accompanying deficits. Make of it what you may. I don’t endorse crazy, constant spending. I’m pretty frugal. There is always some spending that doesn’t have at least some indirect growth potential. Pork. But if you have a growing population, your spending is going to need to rise. if you have a growing infrustructure and maintenance needs for greater business growth, outlays go up. Education, retooling your industries and military, keeping people productive through health care assistance all cost money. So if you cut back too far, you choke the foundation needed for expansion.
However, pretty good growth can also occur with brisk revenues under flattened expenditures. Tax cuts don’t always need to be drastic, nor do rising expenses.
In essence, I think our argument stems from a disagreement that rises from two schools of thought. One is that the federal budget does not drive the economy, and one that it does. I basically believe the latter. If nothing else, I say it drives it indirectly in some cases. And there are certain services and functions that require so much capital that only government can push forward, at least until enough billions are put into a program that businesses are able to gain entry into an arena built by gov’t. Our roads, parks system, our public school system that built this country are examples. So is our space program and other research, and our military. Did anyone expect big business to address environmental concerns, or monitor the stock market against corruption? Can we trust them to do it right? I think gov’t is an engine for growth.
I don’t buy the argument that getting rid of as many nukes as possible is being “soft on defense”. First, if the number of nukes worldwide were reduced to ¼ does that mean there still wouldn’t be a deterrent? Ok, we’d only be able to kill everything on Earth 5 times over, but that’s still pretty good.
Second, I can’t see how such an economic carrot cannot be thought of as a reward and a deterrent. A huge amount of any nuclear nation’s GDP could be freed up by reducing nuclear arms as close to zero as possible. Keeping them in place is a deterrent to growth. Other than some very small nations or factions, nukes are kept around as a defense mechanism, not relied upon for aggression. And an unbelievably dangerous mechanism at that. Truly a headache for our leaders.
Now, do Americans loose sleep worrying about England or France nuking us? No. Why not? Because we depend on one another economically and under agreements that we stand together for a common good. Global economic interdependence is the key to mutual disarmament. It is possible if there are global mutual economic ties, important economic ties among all nuclear parties and our allies. All for one and one for all on a global scale. This would be a large degree of safety. We need to become so mutually interdependent on one another that for any state to nuke another would be fouling one’s own nest.
If we don’t stop proliferation all around the world, we’ll have more nations like India, Pakistan, Korea, Iran, that demand them for their own defense. And a much smaller number of nukes and other WMDs makes it more difficult for them to fall into the hands of radicals. It’s easier to keep track of everything. Relentless proliferation is going to increase unless tight, multilateral controls are put on the situation soon.
And no, it’s not a pipe dream. Here is an annual report from a site, the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a private group that includes people (Nunn & Lugar) that have been involved with the actual reduction of nuclear weapons and other WMDs. It’s headed up by Ted Turner and former Sen. Sam Nunn. It includes Sen. Richard Lugar, Warren Buffett, Dr. William Perry, General Eugene E. Habiger USAF (Ret.) of US Strategic Command and others.
There is white paper information on China at the site there as well per your request for information. I’ve heard Turner suggest that disarmament can likely be done in such a manner that everyone reduces by the same rate at the same time, as much as 10%. So the parity would remain the same. A nation that only has nine nukes might not need to eliminate anything until the major nations got to a point where they had ninety percent of their nukes and then everyone reduces another ninth that second year. Pressure would be put on North Korea to join in time. If they only have four nukes, eliminating one would be ¼ of their arsenal; they would be asked to get rid of that one same at that point everyone else reduces a full 1/4 of the nukes from their supply. And all nations would be lobbied to be part of the pact, and encouraged not to begin manufacturing WMDs.
Nor do I see how taking this money from the military is the same as conventional budget cuts. Again, the money spent on nukes provides very little for the economy at large. It fills the pockets of a few corporations, but it creates no real competition outside of that circle. It’s sludge sitting in the bottom of our economic gas tank. We don’t buy the product and take it home. It doesn’t provide a useful service that is used time and time again. It doesn’t entertain us. Conventional weaponry is used, and our soldiers take many useful skills and a sense of discipline with them when they return to civilian life. You have items developed by the military like Hummers and Jeeps that become useful to civilians, we have the Army Corp. of Engineering, our military assists when we have natural disasters and the like. Non-conventional weaponry is nothing more than a grim, dubious, insurance payment. A reverse-insurance payment actually, since it costs enormously to use it. And worldwide economic disaster looms like none we’ve ever seen should it be used. This is good fiscal planning?
Finally as a grand deterrent, should anyone ever be an WMD aggressor against any nation, once that aggressor is identified, be it a cult or a state, all other nations must use every other means, economic, conventional military, social, to root out those responsible. And by agreement, the force of all nations must come down on their heads. We have more technical means than ever that we did not have twenty years ago, to make such a lose-lose situation for aggressors possible if we can get the WMD count low enough.
Here are the actual estimates of the tax cuts from CTJ in billions of dollars:
Year – Total amt. – Top 1%
2003 ----- $257 ----- $72
2004 ----- $293 ----- $86
2008 ----- $426 ----- $147
2010 ----- $580 ----- $217
[The 2008 and 2010 figures are without sunsets, since Bush is on record as repeatedly asking for the tax cuts to be extended.]
So, you see that in 2003, the tax cuts as a whole already account for a substantial amount (more than half?) of the deficit. Those going to the very rich (top 1%) are more on the order of a sixth the current deficit. (The table of shares of the tax cut shows that to get the amount going to the top 5%, you multiply the number to the top 1% by about 1.5.)
But, the real problem comes down the road…I.e., Bush has created with his tax cuts a deficit that will not go away once the economy recovers. In 2010, if the provisions that sunset are extended, the tax cuts cost $580 billion of which more than half goes to the top 5%.
While not a staunch republican, that is the way I would generally vote–and more importantly I would have voted for Bush for his first term. The reason being that I viewed the two options as being:
Gore: Clinton’s Putz
Bush: GOP’s Putz
Which is not a great choice, but for me I personally had greater hope in the party’s choice than Clinton’s.
Currently, Bush is annoying the heck out of me. I am hoping he gets voted out.
I initially disliked his ploy of, well we can’t find the guy who caused 9-11, so lets just attack the nearest hated ay-rab (Hussein.) And further that it took him over a year to actually even start movement on that.
Once he actually went to war, I disliked the fact that he just never seemed all that intimidating. Certainly, the US army was intimidating, but Bush himself is just not terribly fear-inspiring. But that really isn’t a large issue.
Recently, I have been mostly annoyed by the sheer level of Christian beliefs that he is fobbing on the government. Religion is not allowed in the government, and I would be scared as hell to let it start being so. I would much rather have the other guys in if it will prevent that.
I can’t help but hear the 2003 State of the Union speech going through my head. Before that, I was a staunch anti-Bush, anti-war person. But I clearly remember sitting down in front of my TV with my anti-Bush predispositions going through my head, ready to mentally note the various gaffes Bush was sure to make to joke about the next day.
But then he started talking about the evidence against Iraq, how there were aeriel drones full of chemical weapons that could be sent to the shores of the United States, how there were stockpiles of chemical weapons and we knew where they were, how there was a completely reconstituted nuclear weapons program and if they didn’t have a functioning weapon yet, they could get a crude one setup in weeks. How there were 10-year rrelations with Al-Qaeda itself. Saddam was of course a mad-man and a dictator, but this was nary given a mention except to associate him with someone like Bin Ladin.
This was scary stuff. I didn’t want to think what would happen if someone managed to set off a nuke in the United States. The world would be changed forever. I remember clearly coming away from that SoTU speech decidedly pro-war, and now pro-Bush. I thought he had a very clear idea that Iraq was an integral part of the war on terror, and I wondered why France and the rest were saying no in the face of this kind of evidence.
Now its one year and two months later. One year and two months later, I’m being told there were no aerial drones, no chemical weapon stockpiles to be found, not a trace of a nuclear weapons program and the 10-year relationship with Al Qaeda was really just a 10-year old dubious meeting of some sort, and in fact Al Qaedas philosophy explicitly declared jihad on Iraq because of some of its secular leanings. Saddam Hussein is captured, great, but in the process he killed 500 soldiers indirectly, through OUR action. This wasn’t something close to unavoidable like 9/11. And speaking of 9/11, the guy who orchestrated that is STILL loose. Almost three and a half years after Bush told me hes gonna get him dead or alive, Bin Ladin is still out there somewhere.
But thats not all. All that stuff I was told before the war? Whats the explanation for all that. This wasn’t sweeping generalizations, I was told specifically what was there and I was told we knew exactly where it was. So at this point, I’m left with two conclusions.
One is that President Bush lied to me, or somehow misrepresented the intelligence that we had, to pursue any number of alterier motives (I don’t know which one, and no I’m not just yelling OILZ and HALLIBURTON). This is inexcusable to me. I don’t want a leader lying to me, especially a leader who will lie to me for things like this.
The other one is that our intelligence was grossly wrong. Bush told us what he was told by the CIA and it was all wrong on their end. This wasn’t minor stuff, we completely misclassified the military capability of a major country in the world. Could this be true of other countries? Could there be countries really developing nuclear programs and we don’t know? And if we are to follow a doctrine of pre-emption, don’t we need the intelligence to do so effectively? Obviously, if this is the case, our intelligence needs something close to a vast revamp. There should be outrage from not only the democrats, but the republicans, that our CIA is so grossly negligent. There should be restructuring flying through Congress, there should be high level firings, there should be efforts to truly coordinate the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, etc.
But Bush isn’t doing that. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and say it was the intelligence that was faulty, not his intentions. Why on earth aren’t heads rolling because of this incorrect intelligence? Why is he skirting attempts on the 9/11 commission? Why is he dancing around the issue of intelligence by saying the ends justify the means? Even if they do, this can’t be the proper way to conduct international policy, and certainly not wars. If I had seen true anger from President Bush, and initiative at restructuring and assigning blame for the intelligence I was fed, I would be much more inclined to like the guy. But right now, I’m very saddened and confused at his gross lack of interest at improving our national security. I guess its the sinking realization that I’m not less safe than I was before Bush, I’m just as unsafe as I was before Bush, because our CIA sucks. And for a president to ignore that in favor of gay marriage or faith-based initiatives is unforgivable.
So, while I didn’t vote for anyone in 2000, and was pretty anti-Bush then, he convinced me to be on his side by early 2003. If the election was head last March, I would have voted for him with a smile. But now, I can’t trust this man, certainly not to lead my country. George W. Bush should be ashamed of hmself.
jshore: Those figures do not account for the stimulative effect of the tax cuts. Without rehashing the whole supply-side thing, I hope you agree that there has been SOME stimulus from them. The numbers I’ve seen indicate that maybe 1-2% of the last year’s growth is a result of the tax cuts. 2% growth is about 400 billion dollars in increased GDP. At an average tax rate of 25%, that’s another 100 billion dollars in revenue coming back to the feds. In fact, the Heritage Foundation’s analysis of the cost of the tax cut, which counts the stimulative effect of the cut, calculates the 10 year cost at 939 billion.
But even using the full amount claimed by Citizens of Tax Justice, a full repeal of the whole tax cut would still leave a 300 billion dollar deficit next year.
And anyway, Kerry doesn’t want to repeal the whole tax cut. He just wants to repeal the part that goes to the top 1%. By your own numbers, that’s only a savings of roughly 70 billion a year. And Kerry wants to add a whole new raft of targeted tax cuts for business, plus tax credits for education, day care, etc. And, he wants to give you universal health care, too. Plus he says he would spend more money on homeland defense. Oh yeah, and he’ll balance the budget. Care to explain how?
By the way, since you’ve used the highly partisan ‘Citizens for Tax Justice’ as a cite, does that mean I get a pass the next time I cite something from Cato?
The number I heard (from economy.com) was 1%. So, we can probably halve your $100 billion estimate. (Besides which, isn’t our GDP closer to $10 trillion than $20 or am I out-of-date?) Also, note that this is a stimulus provided when the economy is slack. It would not (unless one believes the supply side mumbo-jumbo) persist once the economy is back on track again.
And, of course, all this stimulus stuff begs the question of whether we could have gotten a greater stimulus effect if we had chosen another policy such as directing more of the tax cuts at lower and middle income folks.
I’m not claiming that the current deficit is not due in good part to the economic slowdown (and the additional spending on the military and security, especially the war in Iraq). However, you are conveniently focussing on right now and ignoring the future years…2008-2010 when the costs balloon to $150-over $200 billion just for the part going to the top 1%. And, if we consider the amount going to the top 5% (I am not sure exactly where Kerry makes the cutoff), you can multiply those numbers by about 1.5.
Well, I will note that you did already quote Heritage already in this post…And, presumably running the numbers with some supply-side mumbo-jumbo model at that. But, I will also note that CTJ has not, to my knowledge, ever had their actual numbers successfully attacked. Honestly, I think CTJ and CBBP seem to have higher standards than Heritage and Cato.
JxJohns: how much did you pay for that college education?
According to your own FBI cite, LEO killings from rifles is 17.7%; those from shotguns are 5.4%. Since most assault weapons (and yes, I do how amorphous that term is and can be) fall into the rifle or shotgun category, a claim of 20% can be approximately correct (17.7+ 5.4 = 23.1). If they said almost 1 - in - 4 were killed by assault weapons, they wouldn’t be exaggerating by very much.
Of course, the real lie here is that there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions of rifles and shotguns (standard hunting models) that aren’t assault weapons, nor need be classified as such, which may just as well be the vastly overwhelming proportion of the 17.7% of rifles and 5.4% of shotguns.
The F.B.I.'s study specifically did NOT mention which percentage of LEO deaths were from the so-called “Assault Weapons” list.
Merijeek:
Well, I think both parties pretty much cry “Wolf!” with regularity, with the difference being what kind of wolf they’re talking about. Is it the Social Security/Gun Control/It Takes A [Greenwich] Village wolf? Or is it the Terrorsim/Family Values/Strong Military wolf?
Both have some substance to their cries, with equal (or more!) parts BS. That’s the beauty of crying “wolf” often enough; you can (eventually) build a case for being correct. Besides, out of the last half-dozen or so Presidents this country has had, there’s only one I’d have the least doubt about being a wife-groper.
To answer my own question, the U.S. GDP in 2002 was $10.4 trillion. So that’s another factor of two…I.e., if 1% of the GDP growth can be attributed to the tax cuts and that is taxed at a 25% rate then the additional revenue raised would be around $25 billion.
I don’t remember. I graduated HS in 1987 and graduated from DePaul in 1998. So, I think the total paid for college and books probably was well over $60,000. Much of that was paid for by a tuition reimbursement from my employer. I couldn’t get the financial aid I needed so I found a job that would pay me to go to school instead (Thanks Amoco!) so if I sound hypocritical for bitching about a $4000 tax credit, maybe I am.
It looks like we are saying the same thing. The numbers you promote are ALL rifles and ALL shotguns. Those combined barley get to the 1-5 stat that VPC is throwing around, and that is looking at ten years of data. They (VPC) instead chose a small window in time in which the numbers looked good for theuir cause. But, they use murders when using an SKS rifle as part of their one in five number, yet as a footnote, they mention that the SKS is not considered an assault rifle by name or configuration. So once again they make up a number using faulty data to scare the uneducated into supporting unecessary legislation. IF Kerry is promoting this garbage, he lost yet a little more in my book. (Not that he had much to start with)
Jshore: You’re right about GDP, and I knew that. I was off my nut when I came up with those numbers.
In any event, we have some more data today, because Bush has accused Kerry of wanting to raise taxes to the tune of 900 billion dollars over 10 years, and Kerry has said that Bush is lying. See, now Kerry wants to INCREASE the tax cut for the middle class, and pay for it by raising taxes on the wealthiest 1%. Sounds to me like he’s aiming for either a very small increase or just a more ‘progressive’ tax cut. Unless of course he flip-flops again. The day is still young.
But wait: Kerry has another surprise for us deficit hawks. Today he announced his plan for a $50 billion fund for states. And he wants to create a whole new peace corps type initiative that will pay for a 4-year education for anyone willing to do two years of service. Wonder how much that will cost? That’s in addition to his “College Opportunity Tax Credit” which will give people 100% tax refund on their first $1,000, and 50% on the next $3,000. So that’s a tax credit of $2500 per year, per student.
Oh, and remember the farm bill that just about everyone around here was pissed about? Kerry thought it should be bigger. He wanted more funding for agriculture conservation programs, rural community development (i.e. pork), and funding for new nutrition programs.
But wait, there’s more! Kerry wants to provide tax credits for housing for people with disabilities, and also give them direct vouchers. He also wants to create ‘better transportation choices’ for them.
But wait, there’s more! Kerry wants additional funding for Head Start. and wants to give vouchers to day care workers that they can use to take more training in early childhood education.
But wait, there’s more! He wants to create a ‘national educational trust fund’ that can be used by schools throughout the nation to supplement their funding. That doesn’t sound expensive. Nosirree.
Here’s a good one: Kerry wants to give free health care to every child in the country.
There’s some swag for the university kids, too: Aside from the tax credit already mentioned, "As part of his “State Tax Relief and Education Fund” Kerry will help states struggling to bridge deficits resulting from Bush’s economic policies with $50 billion to stop the education cuts and tuition increases across the country. "
You know, 50 billion here, and 50 billion there, and soon you’re talking real money.
Oh, wait, here’s some more: “John Kerry is proposing a new ‘I Have a Dream’ scholarship that provides an additional $1,000 for students to participate in an early intervention programs to prepare for college.”
Uh oh… Here’s a big one: “Kerry proposed a new jobs tax credit that would refund the payroll taxes for two years for any new employees hired at a manufacturing company and closes loopholes giving tax incentives to move jobs offshore”
Got that? Manufacturing companies can hire people for two years, TAX FREE. I wonder how much THAT will cost? I also wonder how many people will have manufacturing jobs that last more than 2 years? This guy is an economic idiot. But let’s do some simple math for him: The economy lost 3 million manufacturing jobs in the recession. If all those jobs return during a Kerry administration, and the average tax burden per worker is $10,000 per year, then this little package will cost $30 billion dollars a year.
Then there is the hideous new raft of regulations he’s proposing. Here’s my favorite: He wants to extend the Americans with Disabilities act to WEB SITES. Do you have any idea how onerous that would be? Can you imagine every small web company having to get ADA approval for their fonts, use of MS accessibility standards or their equivalent, etc?
I think that’s enough for now - I only made it a third of the way down the list of promises on his web page, and I think we’ve already ratcheted the deficit up by another couple of hundred billion. We haven’t even talked about his plans to increase health care funding, and it’s a doozy. For instance, to keep health care insurance low, he wants the federal government to pay for 75% of ALL insurance claims over $50,000. Do you have any idea how stupid this idea is? Can you imagine the lack of pressure to control frivolous lawsuits when insurers can just pass the cost on to the government? Can you imagine the potential for fraud and abuse?
Um, I thought deficit hawks were people who didn’t like deficits. I am confused. We’re standing in just about the biggest damn deficit and the absolutely largest debt we’ve ever seen. Please resolve “deficit hawk” with “Bush supporter.”
This isn’t a single issue campaign. My fervent wish is that Bush would learn how to control spending and get the deficit under control. I don’t like his deficits. I also don’t like many other things about the guy.
But today, the most important issue facing the world is the clash between Islamic terrorism and the west. Bush is doing the right thing, and for that alone I am forced to give him a pass on many other things. That doesn’t mean I have to like it.
The military option of aggressively disarming nuclear weapons world, within a fifteen year time frame for instance, has never been seriously considered. Even now, both the Clinton and Bush White House’s have been disarming with one hand and building with another. They’ve made some steps but still want to build smaller, more “controllable” devices. Oh yeah, let’s not forget Star Wars as well, which has never really died and never produced any kind of realistic prototype over the last 20 years.
Social Security needs to be set up in such a way that the money is untouchable. It never has been in an account that Congress cannot touch. The problem is that till has been dipped into more times than we can count.
The entire health system needs insurance reform – it’s out of control, a lot of the cost in medical care all around is paperwork. I don’t know if single payer is the answer, but some sort of streamlining is long overdue. Pharmaceutical gouging of the US public is out of hand as well. I understand they have huge costs developing new medications, but we are seeing that they often sell the items for much less outside the United States. A little more global competition would be good. Little money is spent on prevention in our healthcare system as well. When you consider the huge costs of people not getting adequate healthcare, time off from work and such, simple medical conditions becoming worse when some people are not able to have these conditions treated or adequately medicated in time to keep them from getting worse.
Yeah, all of these Sacred Cows need to be milked. Some streamlining here, some funding there, some keep-your-grubby-hands-offa-our-safety-net. It’s never easy. It’s not only a matter of cuts though there are times for that. Sometimes there are ways of leaving the funding in place and just make certain aspects of the damn thing run efficiently, getting more bounce for your buck. Sometimes the cost of doing business goes up just like everything else in life. There is no either - or answer to any of these.
As long as they stay in Syria, Iran, or wherever they are, they aren’t threat to us. It’s not as though surgical strikes are not done there, they happen. Thkey can train all they want, but as long as we keep them off our soil and of the soil of our allies they can’t do much harm to us. Sending a military division to stop a couple dozen operatives is a waste of time.
Where we need to be vigilant are when the terrorist walk among us and our allies. We hardly have any inspections of containers coming into our ports. Let’s keep a regiment at home and put the money into inspecting that cargo. I’ll sleep sounder with that approach than trying to surround Yemen by force. Let’s make amends with our allies. We need the FBI and CIA, and NSA and port authorities and so on not only freely sharing information with each other, but with their counterparts in dozens of nations. And with us too. We have 200 million sets of eyes and ears they could well take advantage of (though that’s another thread altogether). The trail of the 9/11 killers led to Germany, Canada and elsewhere. We might have stopped them before they came here. We need to stay focused rather than taking a scattershot approach.
Some of our most efficient military successes in places like Afghanistan have been with small groups like our Special Ops, where they’ll spend months getting to know the local people, help them put in wells, put up schools, befriend the locals and gaining their trust. That’s a good way that our military polices those nations, so long as they have enough backup to do the job. So how are we going to eliminate every dictator in the Middle East? Go marching in on every country that has one? Point guns in every direction from IraqWe’re stretched thin as we are now. What would our military do if we had to fight on still another front tomorrow? If the old divide and conquer strategy raises its fearsome head? It’s not going to be accomplished with military force.
The way dictators will be toppled for the most part is through the Internet, and with the rise of new global trade. We have new economic tools with the rise of the Internet and the greater globalization of money crossing borders as it never has before. That’s how we can get cooperation. New markets are being created. Witness China as it gears up to enter the world economy in a big way. For countries and economies to do business in a big way nowadays, you must be interconnected on the Internet. That means information flows both ways as does money. This is creating a problem for many totalitarian states as their people become better informed of the world at large despite their attempt to filter the information. The biggest lever we are seeing behind changes in Libya, Iran, North Korea is the economic one. Some military threat may block an exit or two, but the reasons for them to give up the goods is that if they don’t they won’t be out of the starting blocks as wealth starts getting redistributed in these new world markets. Obviously, they’re concerned, thus these results. I think they’re more concerned about that than being on an Axis of Evil list.
People in most of those places (N. Korea certainly is a special case) are going be a lot more likely to revolt with each passing year if they find out their leaders screwed up on getting them into the economic race. I think they see this now. Furthermore, again, you take a lot of pressure off the despair that gives rise to terrorism by helping to educate people and help them build economies to where they live decent lives. Sure, they’ll have some terrorists living in their versions of the backwoods. There will always be radicals like that. But other than Oklahoma City and the Unibomber, we’ve shown that freethinking, tolerant nations can for the most part keep these problems minimized.
If you want global dominance in tomorrows world, the way to do it will be through ownership. We haven’t seen but the tip of this iceberg. It’s going to be a while until we see if Iraq turns out to be a stabilizing or destabilizing influence on the Middle East, and it’s probably going to be at least a year before we have any real ideal. It’s a crap shoot right now.
Oh yeah, one last thing. We must get on a crash program of energy independence, a 10 year moon shot like program to get out from under the thumb of the Middle East altogether. Do you know that in some places in the US, windmills generate power for about 4 cents a kilowatt-hour? If we build them en masse we could get that down to 2 cents. Lots of cheap infinitely renewable energy there and it’s being suggested that we could power as much as twenty percent of the US with them. And if we get cheap electricity, the cost of producing hydrogen comes way down. It also becomes more feasible to produce it regionally, just in time to take advantage of some of the new breakthroughs in hydrogen battery technology.
These technologies could also be used in developing nations, and put into place far cheaper than rebuilding aging oil refineries. Ya think we might make a buck selling this stuff elsewhere once we’d developed it?
Nah.
But I have a funny feeling that an administration where the president, vice president, nearly every member of the cabinet and many advisors are soaked in oil might not be so eager to let go of petroleum profits in the US. Maybe that’s just me. But if we had started reducing our dependence ten years ago so that we were down to half by now, let me tell you, we’d have a different relationship with Saudi Arabia et. al.
If it’s not a single issue campaign, why do you say that Bush’s handling of terrorism “forces you to give him a pass on many other things”? That sorta sounds like a single-issue campaign to me, at least in your eyes.
I’m curious about something: couldn’t those in power take your attitude (which is shared by a great many people, obviously), and decide that they could do practically anything they wanted in the domestic arena, and know that those who share your beliefs will vote for them anyway, due to the terrorism issue?
In other words, how much more important is the terrorism issue to you than any other domestic issue? How many things can they add to the “many other things” before that list becomes too long? Please note that I ask mostly because I’ve heard your argument in a LOT of other arenas from many other people, and I’m curious on your perspective, to get a better idea of how those with your POV in general approach this.
On a related note, what about 2006? Will your priorities guide you to take a look at all candidates, see how they say they’ll approach the War on Terror, and vote accordingly, whether Democrat or Republican? Or are you taking more of a party-based approach (ie which party’s overall plan strikes you as best)?
I didn’t phrase that well. What I should have said is, “this isn’t a single issue campaign, but there is one overriding issue which carries a lot of weight.” In other words, as long as a president does the right things on that, I’m going to give him a lot of slack on other stuff. But if he gets that wrong, he’d have to be very, very good in other areas for me to stick with him.
I was actually somewhat ambivalent about Kerry from a cynical standpoint - there’s little damage he can do, because a Republican congress will turn him into a lame duck if he tries to go too far.
But after reading his web site, I think I may have underestimated his inanity. Have you read it? His economic plan is nuts.
The military option of aggressively disarming nuclear weapons world, within a fifteen year time frame for instance, has never been seriously considered. Even now, both the Clinton and Bush White House’s have been disarming with one hand and building with another. They’ve made some steps but still want to build smaller, more “controllable” devices. Oh yeah, let’s not forget Star Wars as well, which has never really died and never produced any kind of realistic prototype over the last 20 years.
Social Security needs to be set up in such a way that the money is untouchable. It never has been in an account that Congress cannot touch. The problem is that till has been dipped into more times than we can count.
The entire health system needs insurance reform – it’s out of control, a lot of the cost in medical care all around is paperwork. I don’t know if single payer is the answer, but some sort of streamlining is long overdue. Pharmaceutical gouging of the US public is out of hand as well. I understand they have huge costs developing new medications, but we are seeing that they often sell the items for much less outside the United States. A little more global competition would be good. Little money is spent on prevention in our healthcare system as well. When you consider the huge costs of people not getting adequate healthcare, time off from work and such, simple medical conditions becoming worse when some people are not able to have these conditions treated or adequately medicated in time to keep them from getting worse.
Yeah, all of these Sacred Cows need to be milked. Some streamlining here, some funding there, some keep-your-grubby-hands-offa-our-safety-net. It’s never easy. It’s not only a matter of cuts though there are times for that. Sometimes there are ways of leaving the funding in place and just make certain aspects of the damn thing run efficiently, getting more bounce for your buck. Sometimes the cost of doing business goes up just like everything else in life. There is no either - or answer to any of these.
As long as they stay in Syria, Iran, or wherever they are, they aren’t threat to us. It’s not as though surgical strikes are not done there, they happen. Thkey can train all they want, but as long as we keep them off our soil and of the soil of our allies they can’t do much harm to us. Sending a military division to stop a couple dozen operatives is a waste of time. It’s going to be a while until we see if Iraq turns out to be a stabilizing or destabilizing influence on the Middle East, and it’s probably going to be at least a year before we have any real ideal. It’s a crap shoot right now.
Where we need to be vigilant are when the terrorist walk among us and our allies. We hardly have any inspections of containers coming into our ports. Let’s keep a regiment at home and put the money into inspecting that cargo. I’ll sleep sounder with that approach than trying to surround Yemen by force. Let’s make amends with our allies. We need the FBI and CIA, and NSA and port authorities and so on not only freely sharing information with each other, but with their counterparts in dozens of nations. And with us too. We have 200 million sets of eyes and ears they could well take advantage of (though that’s another thread altogether). The trail of the 9/11 killers led to Germany, Canada and elsewhere. We might have stopped them before they came here. We need to stay focused rather than taking a scattershot approach.
Some of our most efficient military successes in places like Afghanistan have been with small groups like our Special Ops, where they’ll spend months getting to know the local people, help them put in wells, put up schools, befriend the locals and gaining their trust. That’s a good way that our military polices those nations, so long as they have enough backup to do the job. So how are we going to eliminate every dictator in the Middle East? Go marching in on every country that has one? Point guns in every direction from Iraq and shake the sabre once in a while? We’re stretched thin as we are now. What would our military do if we had to fight on still another front tomorrow? If the old divide and conquer strategy raises its fearsome head? It’s not going to be accomplished with military force.
The way dictators will be toppled for the most part is through the Internet, and with the rise of new global trade. We have new economic tools with the rise of the Internet and the greater globalization of money crossing borders as it never has before. That’s how we can get cooperation. New markets are being created. Witness China as it gears up to enter the world economy in a big way. Just in the last week they’re talking about privatizing property. China may be a communist nation, but their economy may be nearly more capitalistic than Russia’s. Or it will be soon. They keep moving closer to democracy every year because of the new globalization of markets. And so can others if we help include them.
For countries and economies to do business in a big way nowadays, they must be interconnected on the Internet. That means information flows both ways as does money. This is creating a problem for many totalitarian states as their people become better informed about the world at large, despite their attempts to filter the information. The biggest lever we are seeing behind changes in Libya, Iran, North Korea is the economic one. They all admit it, and it makes sense. Some military threat may block an exit or two. But the best reason for them to give up the WMD goods is that if they don’t they won’t be out of the starting blocks once wealth starts getting redistributed in these new world markets. You can’t be isolated by the world at large and partake in the markets in a meaningful way. Obviously, they’re concerned, thus these results. I think they’re more concerned about losing the economic race than being on an Axis of Evil list.
People in most of those places (N. Korea certainly is a special case) are going be a lot more likely to revolt with each passing year if they find out their leaders screwed up on getting them into the economic race. I think they see this now. Furthermore, again, you take a lot of pressure off the despair that gives rise to terrorism by helping to educate people and help them build economies to where they live decent lives. Sure, they’ll have some terrorists living in their versions of the backwoods. There will always be radicals like that. But other than Oklahoma City and the Unibomber, we’ve shown that freethinking, tolerant nations can for the most part keep these problems minimized.
Anyway, if someone wants global dominance in tomorrows world, the way to do it will be through ownership. It makes more sense than having to blow up the property in order to claim it as your own. It’s usually legal too. We haven’t seen but the tip of this iceberg.
Oh yeah, one last thing. We must get on a crash program of energy independence, a 10 year moon shot like program to get out from under the thumb of the Middle East altogether. Do you know that in some places in the US, windmills generate power for about 4 cents a kilowatt-hour? If we build them en masse we could get that down to 2 cents. Lots of cheap infinitely renewable energy there and it’s being suggested that we could power as much as twenty percent of the US with them. And if we get cheap electricity, the cost of producing hydrogen comes way down. It also becomes more feasible to produce it regionally, just in time to take advantage of some of the new breakthroughs in hydrogen battery technology.
These technologies could also be used in developing nations, and put into place far cheaper than rebuilding aging oil refineries. Ya think we might make a buck selling this stuff elsewhere once we’d developed it?
Nah.
But I have a funny feeling that an administration where the president, vice president, nearly every member of the cabinet and many advisors are soaked in oil might not be so eager to let go of petroleum profits in the US. Maybe that’s just me. But if we had started reducing our dependence ten years ago so that we were down to half by now, let me tell you, we’d have had a different relationship with Saudi Arabia et. al. pre 9/11
