U.S. Politics Today – Political News Media Monitoring — If you cannot get enough politics then go to Joe Rothstein’s US Politics Today website. It’s not free which is a shame, but you can look at the front page and pretty much see where things are going. There’s also the free trial. Here are a few recent headlines:
Rebel Attacks Hit Baghdad As Rumsfeld Visits Iraq…
New Information Suggests That U.S. May Have Played into Hussein’s Plans for Quick War Followed by Long Guerrilla Insurgency…
Long an Iraqi Target, No U.S. Help in Sight: Complaints by Soldiers Under Daily Fire Contrast Sharply With White House, Pentagon Statements…
Returning Troops Suffer From Brain Trauma; More Soldiers Come Back From Iraq With Invisible Injuries…
Friends on the Inside: Bush-appointed Administrators at the FDA Have Consistently Sided With the Interests of Business…
From US Politics today:
A headline of “Picking a President: Six Major Papers Endorse Kerry” is news? If the headline said, “Picking a President: Six Major Evangelists Support Bush” would we find that to be news?
It still cracks me up that liberals actually believe that Kerry will be fiscally conservative. He’s actually conned them into thinking that he’s not a spend and tax liberal and that he’ll pay down the deficit.
Bush isn’t even able to convince Conservatives that he is a fiscal conservative. Is a borrow-and-spend Conservative really better than a tax-and-spend Liberal?
If your unsupported predictions about what you think Kerry’s future fiscal policy might be and his alleged “con” made you crack up, you must have peed your damned pants when Bush conned Republicans into believing he was a fiscal conservative and then drove up the biggest deficit in history.
Or as those pinko commies at the Cato Institute wrote: “The Mother of All Big Spenders: Bush spends like Carter and panders like Clinton.”
http://www.cato.org/research/articles/dehaven-030728.html
“But the fact is we have mounting deficits because George W. Bush is the most gratuitous big spender to occupy the White House since Jimmy Carter. One could say that he has become the “Mother of All Big Spenders.””
Graph related to Bush’s claim in the last debate: http://www.cato.org/research/fiscal_policy/bush/images/fig5-592×391.gif
Again, these comments presume that Kerry will do different. You keep harping on Bush for running up the deficit and yet Kerry is going to continue to do the exact same thing. If a lower deficit is your big thing, then don’t vote for Kerry (or Bush). Oh, wait, I’m sorry, the Democrats only believe in voting for other parties if it doesn’t affect them. ;->
Is a “borrow-and-spend” conservative better than a “tax, spend-and borrow liberal? Yes.
We are beyond deciding for a fiscally conservative candidate. There isn’t one. While Bush may be spending like mad now, it should be quite clear that Kerry in no way, shape or form is or ever will be a fiscal conservative.
Thomas, how do YOU know exactly WHAT Kerry is going to do? Are you a psychic? Or just bigoted? You’re starting to sound like a radio talk show parrot. I’m not hearing anything from you except knee-jerk bromides. Think for yourself, man!
Feeling a little touchy John? It’s not psychic; it’s called research. You should give it a whoorl. Since it appears you are voting for Kerry, perhaps you should read his “plan” before you call those with opposing view points “bigoted.”
I’ve based my opinion on:
1. What he’s said
2. What he actually did
3. How he did matched with what he said
4. What his party has done historically
5. His “plan”.
From those sources, we all have to determine the following:
A: What is he suggesting?
B: Does it sound as if it would work?
…and most importantly
C: Do we think he’ll do what he says?
If he didn’t increase spending at all, his plan, on the surface, would in fact make a small dent in the deficit. I say small, because his tax on the “rich” will garner him little tax revenue. The “rich” are figuring out ways to hide their money as we speak. Looking only at the deficit section in his “plan”, it looks sound. However, after you get past his talk on the deficit you hit section after section of new or increased spending. Since you cannot reduce the deficit by increasing spending we have a dilemma. Either he will focus on fiscal management in which case his spending ideas will not materialize or he’ll focus on spending in which case his deficit reduction plans will not materialize. Given Kerry’s history, the history of his party and the tumultuous state of affairs in the world, I’m guessing the later.
None of us “knows” what either candidate will do. However, we can make logical hypotheses based on the information I mentioned above. I’m not at all suggesting that Bush is any kind of financial genius. I am suggesting that I have more confidence that he’ll do what he says (which I’ll grant you, isn’t always great) and that his party has historically shown better fiscal management than the Democrats.
This is your blog John, yet I haven’t heard any detailed musings about your opinion of the economic plans for either candidate. Exclaiming “bigot!” doesn’t exactly make you the poster child for “Think for yourself.”
I agree with Dvorak’s comment and add, this “Kerry is a liberal that will run up the deficit” mantra is wholly undercut by the fact that under Clinton (a liberal), we had a surplus.
You can blame the economic conditions of the 90’s on a million different things if you’d like, but regardless of the causes, Clinton had more than enough opportunity to increase non-defense spending to support the right-wing’s preconceived notions about liberals, but he chose the path of fiscal responsibility (see the chart linked to above).
As for Kerry, you need more than to just say he’s another liberal and assume that makes your argument. In addition to his many stated plans for cutting spending and balancing the budget, which you’ll likely claim are nothing but lies or promises-to-be-broken, you also have to note that as far back as 1985 (maybe even before) he was a co-sponsor of the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings amendment that “sought to cut then-chronic federal deficits to zero by setting targets for spending levels enforced by mandatory across-the-board cuts if necessary.”
So, as he’s reminded everyone, he has a plan, but also, he has a track record of fiscal responsibility.
I must add, that if he started his con way back in 1985 with the intention of, 20 years later, being a “tax-spend-borrow” (“borrow”? Nice try Thomas …) liberal, that shows some unbelievable patience. I’m sure it isn’t quite as unbelievable with a tinfoil hat firmly in place.
Thomas,
In the first half of your post, you present nothing more than a non-specificif framework for analysis. While I can’t argue with it, in order for it to be relevant, you actually have to plug some specific information in there. You didn’t do that at all.
And then you proceed with an erroneous, bordering on nonsensical argument.
First, you say, “I say small, because his tax on the “rich” will garner him little tax revenue. The “rich” are figuring out ways to hide their money as we speak.”
Since what you are referring to is nothing but a rollback of the tax cut for those making over $200k, you’re essentially arguing that Bush’s tax cut had no affect whatsoever. That is, if we go back to what was being collected before, you’re saying we’re not going to collect anything. Good luck trying to show that, but I welcome any citations to show that Bush’s tax cut had no impact on tax revenues.
Then you base your entire argument on this erroneous statement:
“Since you cannot reduce the deficit by increasing spending we have a dilemma.”
Wrong. It’s called deficit spending and it’s widely favored amongst economists to deal with various economic conditions. http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Deficit_spending
It clearly doesn’t work in every situation, but your underlying premise is flatly wrong, and therefore, your conclusions are as well.
Moreover, by making this statement, you are wholly undermining any argument that you would have for Bush because this is his entire economic theory. All Bush has is supply-side economics, which is basically, deficit spending run amok and targeted at the top. There isn’t anything else to his policy. So if you don’t believe that increasing spending helps the deficit, what are doing supporting Bush? He thinks that it’s all that is required to get out of a recession and to spur the economy.
“Given Kerry’s history, the history of his party and the tumultuous state of affairs in the world, I’m guessing the later.”
What history? Cite something. History of the party? We have 8 years of fiscal responsibility under Clinton and 4 years of irresponsibility and unprecedented deficits under Bush where Republicans controlled all branches of government. History is not on your side. As for world-wide conditions, that doesn’t really support either candidate.
“However, we can make logical hypotheses based on the information I mentioned above.”
You didn’t provide any information. You presented a framework and an erroneous premise. There’s no actual specifics in your entire post.
“I am suggesting that I have more confidence that he’ll do what he says (which I’ll grant you, isn’t always great) …”
What does Bush say he’s going to do to combat the deficit? I went to his website, tried to find something, and merely saw more promises about jobs. Kerry’s site is overrun with info such as:
http://www.johnkerry.com/pdf/economic_plan.pdf
“that his party has historically shown better fiscal management than the Democrats.”
8 years of Clinton v. 4 years of Bush and Republicans controlling the government. What’s this alleged history you’re talking about?
For the record, my post #7 was written and submitted before Thomas ‘ post at #6 showed up.
I made two particular points in my analysis. The first is that Kerry is not fiscally conservative and the second is that the Democrats, on the whole are less fiscally conservative than the Republicans. Before I substantiate those claims, let’s first be clear what we mean by “fiscally conservative.” IMO, a person has a fiscally conservative position if in general they vote against spending increases, for tax cuts or credits and for systems managed by the market instead of the government.
In order to analyze my claims I went to http://www.vote-smart.org”>Project Vote Smart to look at Kerry’s voting record. This site only contains Kerry’s voting record from 1992 through the present. Furthermore, because the analysis is time consuming and I have to work for a living, I have currently only analyzed votes from 1992 through 1997. Lastly, this site is recording raw votes. That means that it may record multiple votes on the same issue that gets amended multiple times. On issues where I thought it was a push or didn’t have time to analyze the repercussions I didn’t count it.
Claim 1. Kerry is not fiscally conservative.
I found on average, that Kerry voted about 27% of the time for measures that I would consider fiscally conservative. That means that 73% of the time he voted for measures that were not fiscally conservative.
Claim 2. Democrats are less fiscally conservative than Republicans
Using the same votes, I analyzed how the rest of the Senate voted on the same items as Kerry broken down by party. I’m including Kerry’s vote in the analysis. On average, only 18% of Democrats voted for fiscally conservative issues as opposed to 34% of Republicans.
Thus, I find that my positions are both justified. Mind you, I said nothing about whether Bush is also fiscally conservative. I would agree with those that claim that he is not at the moment. That was never my point. My point is that Kerry is not fiscally conservative and on average the Republicans are most fiscally conservative that the Democrats. I will also grant you that the percentages might change should I go through to 2004 (but I doubt it). Perhaps I will when I have the time.
RE: Deficit
It is an oxymoron to say that you can reduce the deficit by spending more. By definition, deficit spending is spending more than you make. So, while it might be plausible to state that Kerry’s plan increases revenue in the long run using deficit spending in the short run, in the short run that plan still calls for spending more than you make.
RE: Tax Cut
It is completely logical to state the lowering taxes can have an effect greater than the revenue generated by increasing those same taxes. When the tax rate is high, people put their money into tax shelters that lower their overall liability. That is why Heinz Kerry was able to pay an effective tax rate of only about 12% (BTW, regardless of the accuracy of this claim, I do not have a problem with this stat unlike the Republicans. If she can lower her liability to 12%, more power to her). This is a good example of how the rich “hide” their money to avoid tax liability. However, when the tax rate is low, they will put more of their money into taxable investments because the gains less the tax are greater. Thus, while they are being taxed at a lower rate, there is generally more to be taxed and thus tax revenue goes up.
Bush’s Economic Theory
I suppose we have to talk about which Bush. Are we talking about pre-9/11 Bush? Then yes, he believes (believed) in supply-side economics and in fact, individual tax revenue did increase up until 2003 where it dipped slightly. If we are talking post-9/11 Bush? Who knows. My original point was about Kerry being “fiscally conservative” not Bush.
I also agree with Dvorak’s comment .