[QUOTE=pantom]
Shodan: I’m sure you’re right about whatever in tarnation you’re referring to. Please consult
this timeline. Clinton’s deficit reduction plan was passed on August 10, 1993. So you’re right, technically it wasn’t the first thing he did. So sorry.
[quote]
No, I was talking about the economic stimulus package he tried to pass.
Regards,
Shodan
Just a quick update.
-XT
Just a quick update.
Hopefully, we have turned a corner, and these factors are just lagging behind. However, it seems to me that there is still a large gap between those for whom the current economy is super-duper, and many, many other folks.
I suspect that any corners we might have turned were demolished by Katrina. 
Not to mention energy prices.
Too mindboggling for words…We’re supposed to feel happy that the trillions of dollars of additional debt that Bush is piling up, after inheriting a budget surplus from Clinton, is piling up a little bit less fast this year than we did last year. And yet, Shodan is still going on about Clinton’s $16 billion stimulus plan. Do you realize Shodan, that the job growth numbers during most of the several years following that plan are still better than the best year of the Bush Administration and that Bush’s supposed stimulus plan is costing us over 2 orders of magnitude more than the Clinton plan?
Do you even understand what a trillion dollars is in comparison to a million dollars? Geez.
I meant a trillion in comparison to a billion of course.
Either way, a billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you’re talking real money.
It is an entirely legitimate political position to hold that those who already have more money than they can spend should have more. It is simply a political position I wholeheartedly detest, and will resist until my keyboards last breath.
I don’t understand. Can you describe your preferred system, where people who “already have more many than they can spend” wouild not be allowed to have any more? What would such people do in that system? Seems like they’d have only two choices-- continue working w/o pay, or retire. Once they retired, though, what would they do with their money other than spend it? If they invested it, they wouldn’t be able to receive any income from it.
Your position might make sense if the economy were a zero sum game. But the economy isn’t a zero sum game.
Am I missing something?
Or… was that just another way of saying you’d never advocate reducing taxes for the very wealthy? It wasn’t clear from the context.
I was correcting a misstatement of fact by pantom.
And Clinton’s stimulus plan was defeated by Republicans, so I don’t think it is wise to attribute job growth numbers to it, as you seem to be implying. As is often the case, deficit reduction is a bad thing when Republicans do it, but attempts to increase the deficit are good if Democrats do it.
Here’s a tissue - wipe the foam off your chin.
Regards,
Shodan
I thought it was opposed by Republicans, but passed anyway. What was the bill you are talking about, and what was the vote breakdown by party?
Shodan: More like being ridiculously and uselessly pedantic, but feel free. The fact remains that any one year of this President’s term has raised the fiscal debt by more than it went up in any year Clinton was President, save the first year of Clinton’s term, when he inherited the father of this President’s mess, and the first year of Bush II’s term, when he inherited the sound policies put in place by Clinton and his economic team. This interlude is very very similar to the billion dollar Republican Congress, as it was called at the time, that trashed the prudence of Grover Cleveland. Who, btw, was also vilified for his private life. History does rhyme, sometimes.
Looking at the figures, I can only be amazed that you would even bring up the subject, since all it will do, in my case, anyway, is provoke me into bringing not-so-pedantic facts into play to show just how unbelievably trivial your point is. Allow me to, ahem, elucidate:
7/29/2005 $7,887,617,581,195.58 $508,564,884,865.26
9/30/2004 $7,379,052,696,330.32 $595,821,633,586.70
9/30/2003 $6,783,231,062,743.62 $554,995,097,146.46
9/30/2002 $6,228,235,965,597.16 $420,772,553,397.10
9/28/2001 $5,807,463,412,200.06 $133,285,202,313.20
9/29/2000 $5,674,178,209,886.86 $17,907,308,271.43
9/30/1999 $5,656,270,901,615.43 $130,077,892,717.81
9/30/1998 $5,526,193,008,897.62 $113,046,997,500.28
9/30/1997 $5,413,146,011,397.34 $188,335,072,261.61
9/30/1996 $5,224,810,939,135.73 $250,828,038,426.34
9/29/1995 $4,973,982,900,709.39 $281,232,990,696.07
9/30/1994 $4,692,749,910,013.32 $281,261,026,873.94
9/30/1993 $4,411,488,883,139.38 $346,868,227,617.72
9/30/1992 $4,064,620,655,521.66
That 346.8 billion dollar deficit that Clinton inherited? A record. Notice that that year and every year since is less than any year under Bush II except the first.
That 420.7 billion dollar deficit in Bush II’s second year? A record. The 555 billion dollar deficit in the third year? A record. The 595.8 billion (this figure and the prior are each more than half a trillion dollars in size, btw. That’s trillion with a “t”.) deficit? Yet another record. Through July of this year, 508.5 billion smackeroos. Once again, more than half a trillion dollars.
I believe your point, in this context, is the definition, nay the quintessence, of trivial. For shame.
I very much doubt it, John, bright lad that you are. My point is rather a broad one, a more or less general indictment of our ongoing disinterest in economic justice. There was no pretense of a scheme of action that would invite a duel of spreadsheets. Nor do I intend to offer a precise and detailed scheme only to watch it nitpicked to death, thanks, but no thanks.
But, just as I said, I pretty much think you knew that.