I can name about 16 categories that Bush favors and I don’t. This includes his opinions on stem cell research, environment, anti right to choose, forcing religion down our throats AND his failure to admit that had he known that there were NO WMD in Iraq, he would not have invaded that country…
Now, Senator Kerry, who spent 20 plus years in congress with a lackluster record, has plans for just about every issue:
Health care for everyone
Better schools, teachers, and less students per classroom
Blah, Blah, Blah
I would like to ask those of you who support Kerry for president where the funds are going to come from to perform all these wonderful plans.
I’m sure that the Republicans and the half of the people in the US who are NOT voting for Kerry would love to know how he plans to fund these wonderful plans.
I believe if he tells us that information and its doable, then I’ll switch my vote to Kerry as will millions of others.
Now, I’m not stating that his plan will be effective, but from what I understand, he plans to close the corporate loopholes for businesses and roll back the recent tax cuts for the top 1% earners. Whether that will cover his plan, I do not know.
However, from what I have read, Bush’s plans are even more expensive - somewhere in the neighborhood of $3 trillion - and I haven’t heard anything from him on how he plans to pay for that.
Undoubtedly there won’t be enough money to pay for America’s becoming Utopia.
No, won’t happen.
I’m voting for Kerry because of his overall good sense and judgment. Because he won’t start useless wars and give big tax breaks to the rich. He’ll do less damage than Bush would, and that’s a big plus to begin with.
Within the money that is available, however, I also think some of his ideas will genuinely move the country forward.
So far as I can figure out by what Kerry and The Beave say, their plans are really no more than goals. Their “plan” is to build a coalition, but they don’t say how they’re going to do it. Their “plan” is to make the “right decisions” in regard to Iraq, but they don’t say what these “right decisions” are. Their “plan” is to deal “in the right way” with Iran and North Korea, but they don’t say what this “right way” is. Their “plan” is for everyone to have health care, but they don’t explain how they are going to accomplish it, especially given the fact that Congress is also a part of the governing process, not to mention how they’re going to fund it. Their “plan” is for everyone to be able to buy medicine from Canada, but they don’t say how they’ll get past Congress on that, either…nor do they explain how they’ll ensure these drugs are safe and what they’re supposed to be. Their “plan” is to reduce terrorist activity to mere annoyance, but they don’t come anywhere near spelling out how they’ll go about it. Their “plan” is to make the wealthy pay their “fair share,” but they refuse to define who’s really “wealthy,” and just how much they’ll have to pay.
Their real plan is to do just what they’re doing…pretend they have a plan so everyone will think they have an answer to the hard questions, and hope everone will be so anxious to get rid of Bush that they’ll vote for Kerry even though they haven’t the vaguest idea what these so-called “plans” are.
And your point is very well taken, MadSam. How is it that a senator with 20 years of unimaginative and lackluster performance behind him suddenly able to speak with such confidence that he has a “plan” to solve virtually every complex and difficult problem the nation has?
That’s pretty much correct, but is it ever any different? It’s not as they they’ve had the time to sit down and write in-depth policy papers on each matter. I’ve never heard a candidate in a presidential debate offer anything more than the “goals” you’re talking about.
Including Bush. It’s his own damn war, and, although I don’t expect him personally to write a paper on it, I have heard nothing out of his fool mouth to indicate that even understands what’s going on.
I don’t get it, Starving Artist. How is “He won’t be able to get it past Congress” a criticism that’s unique to Kerry? Would the same not apply to any president’s plans at any time in the history of the United States? Presidents have plans, and when they get into office, they try to persuade the Congress to enact them. This isn’t exactly a new thing.
MadSam, you do realise that you have a thread about how Kerry hasn’t mentioned a way to pay for his promises AND a thread about how Kerry is planning to steal a whole heap of money from the rich? Maybe you could put your two exaggerated allegations side by side and think about it for a little while?
With regard to the Kerry health care plan, I believe we’re still talking about a form of private health insurance, run by private companies, here. It isn’t that he’s planning to institute a largely government-paid system like Australia’s Medicare or Britain’s NHS (or how those systems were intended to be, anyway). This proposal should be considerably cheaper for the government.
Think about it - a few years ago, Clinton was running the government with slightly higher taxes across the board, especially on those earning over $200,000 per year, and managed to make a surplus of hundreds of billions. If Kerry returned the tax system to something like the Clinton system for those earning over $200,000 per year, and closed some corporate tax loopholes, there’d be a lot more money in the system. Presumably enough to balance the budget (something Kerry’s campaigned for for most of his Senate career, even when it was anathema to Democrats) and for a bit left over for social programs such as healthcare.
If you don’t like the ideas of slightly higher taxes on the rich and more spending on social programs, fair enough. But that’s Kerry’s plan, and you know it. Don’t dance around the issue.
When both lackluster candidates, Kerry and Edwards, spend 95 % of their time Bush Bashing and attempt to fool the US populace by knocking the other guy and saying very little about themselves, this disturbs me and other critical thinkers.
Why don’t the Bush Basher students and young people admit that one of the main reasons for their contempt for Bush on Iraq is their fear of being drafted. Its a legitimate concern but why not admit this.
Kerry was the first to expose Iran-Contra, the greatest abuse of government power of our times. He closed down BCCI, the corrupt financial institution that enabled drug lords and terrorists, including Osama bin Laden, to launder money. He campaigned for balanced budgets way back in the eighties and broke with his own party to do so. He worked with John McCain to resolve the lingering issues of the Vietnam War and drag Vietnam away from its Communist past and back into the world community. He served on various committees in various roles, notably on Intelligence. He campaigned for veterans’ rights left right and centre. Despite what the attack ads say, he was moderate on military issues, only voting against gold-plated technological duds and some nuclear weapons. Many of these votes were in line with Republicans, including Dick Cheney’s post-Cold War cuts to certain military programs.
He has at least a reasonable record, and some of his achievements (Iran-Contra, BCCI, Vietnam reconciliation) have been outstanding in their sacrifice of Kerry’s own best interest to the common good. Don’t push the GOP’s “do-nothing Senator” meme.
And how dare a Presidential candidate talk about his plans for solving the nation’s problems without being capable of solving every one single-handedly? How dare he?
Because, clearly, the Bush-Cheney campaign hasn’t run a negative ad or made a disparating remark about Kerry.
Does this have anything to do with your OP, or are you just going to keep changing your rationales for bashing Kerry when your previous assertions are proven wrong?
Are you also aware that just recently, Germany stopped selling weapons of all kinds to Israel? Bush, for whatever reason you choose, has been very responsive to Israel…far more than Kerry et al. Perhaps this is why Germany said that it would consider helping out if Kerry were elected.
Every presidential candidate since Jimmy Carter has told us that he will “reform” education. Exactly what does this mean? For your information, primary education in the USA is controlled by local school boards, and NOTHING that any president says or does will have any effect on it! Of course, Carter did set up the federal Dept.of Education, which spends a LOT of money (most of it to no useful effect).
How people keep falling for this crap is beyond me!
In fact, the hand of the Fedral government has been more harmful than helpful (in matters of leelmentary education). WE’ve spent TRILLIONS on booondoggles like HEADSTART, NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND, AFTERSCHOOL , SCHOOL BTRAKFASTS, SCHOOL LUNCHES, bla blah blah.
I’d say that most of the school lunch programs have contributed to the incredible child obesity problems in this country!
The problem, Aeschines, is that Kerry isn’t speaking of them as goals. He is claiming to have actual plans to bring these things about, or at least that’s what he wants the electorate to think.
And Bush speaks of “goals” when he talks about defeating terrorism or the economy or the future. And yes, this is what politicians usually do, they speak of their goals. But Kerry confidently and baldfacedly claims to have actual plans not only to try to accomplish these goals, but which will certainly accomplish them. Thus, he has no credibility with me or anyone else who wants to judge his likely presidency based on what he says.
Contrariwise, all Bush has done is bash Kerry, while his slimeball GOP allies spread outright lies about the man (hint: SBVT). Why? Because Bush’s own record is the shits.
Quite true. But Kerry isn’t framing his statements in such a way as to indicate he will have to get anything past anybody. He makes bold statements about what he will do, not what he will work to accomplish. He is flat out telling people he will do certain things as a matter of fact, when in reality he may or may not be able to deliver on them.
A person would expect more from even a building contractor. What if someone came out to give you a bid on some work for your house and he said he’d do this and that and the other thing, and then once you awarded him the job he only did part of it and then said, well, he was sorry, but once he got into the job he found out that all the things he said he’d do weren’t really possible? You’d be outraged…and you would think he was either a liar and a con man, or that he was surprisingly incompetent. This is just how I think of Kerry…although he’s been in Congress long enough to pretty much rule out the question of whether or not he’s blissfully unaware of the difficulties he’d face in trying to accomplish these things. So what does that leave us with as to what he’s trying to accomplish by telling people these things?
To me, he’s little better than a car salesman.
With apologies to any car salesmen among the readership. You’ve proven by being here that you’re quite a bit better than the average car-selling bear.
No, you have your reasons for being pro Kerry. Whatever they may be does not suggest that you and Kerry are in a conspiracy together. Usually most of us have a deep seated reason that gives us a passionate reply to enable us to feel strongly to feel strongly about as issue as we are discussing…
