Kerry under investigation for possible medal fraud

[Guest Frank Stallone]

It baffles me no end that it could matter in the slightest that someone running for President was involved in a war. What real benefit could that possibly present once he's in office?? Sadder still is I have no doubt that there are hundreds of Americans right now saying,

 

"I'm gonna vote for that John Kerry as President, he's a genuine war hero ya know. Yup, he has the physical ability to fire a gun. That's the kind of man this country needs running its economy."

I like him, because he actually sounds like he's trying to do something, all Bush can say is "War in Iraq, War On Terrrr, and John Kerry Flip Flops!" Well, what does Bush have besides 9/11 and the war? I can't believe people are buying these as strong points! "Well, our country got attacked and I can't stop mentioning it, even though it's just a reason to take over the Middle East, and I got us into a war that still hasn't been justified."

 

John Kerry Actually seems to talk about what he wants to do, Bush says we're going to continue blah blah blah. He hasn't done anything positive, so does that mean he's going to continue to run the economy into the ground?

 

I want Clinton Back!

[Guest MikeSC]

That's what I just said.

 

But downplaying the value of the experience doesn't work.

Military service has not shown itself to be a solid determining factor in leadership in the White House. Washington, possibly are best President (but an absolutely terrible general), was the rare exception the rule.

 

Eisenhower, while likable, didn't really do much of anything. JFK did virtually nothing in his brief stint. I won't even go into the assorted debacles of 19th Century warrior Presidents.

 

I consider corporate leadership or being a governor of infinite more usefulness than being a military man.

-=Mike

[Guest MikeSC]

I like him, because he actually sounds like he's trying to do something,

Care to enlighten us --- or, hell, HIM? He hasn't really set up a plan outside of "I was in Vietnam. Don't question my patriotism".

all Bush can say is "War in Iraq, War On Terrrr, and John Kerry Flip Flops!"  Well, what does Bush have besides 9/11 and the war?

Missed his Convention speech, eh?

 

And, mind you, the War on Terror IS the big issue.

I can't believe people are buying these as strong points!  "Well, our country got attacked and I can't stop mentioning it, even though it's just  a reason to take over the Middle East, and I got us into a war that still hasn't been justified."

As opposed to supporting Kerry because, dammit, he was in Vietnam.

 

For four months.

 

He's also discussed reforming the tax code, privatizing Social Security, etc.

John Kerry Actually seems to talk about what he wants to do

Um, when?

Bush says we're going to continue blah blah blah.  He hasn't done anything positive, so does that mean he's going to continue to run the economy into the ground?

 

I want Clinton Back!

You're one of the few.

 

Have fun worshipping this day's Calvin Coolidge.

-=Mike

[Guest Frank Stallone]

Kerry said that he would reward companies that dont outsource, and that he would repeal the tax cut that the rich are benefitting from greatly. He also said that he would raise up student loans so that students aren't paying them off for so long after they leave school. And that he wants to invest in education, and technology to create better jobs.

 

Oh and it's nice of Bush to say that "Our economy is creating more jobs than it has in a long time" but dew to a slump in employment in the summer he stopped saying that.

 

The economy is shit right now, tax cuts will not help it.

 

And another thing, I dont understand how people can be so hardcore into politics like you, are you making a difference by arguing with everyone? Are you gonna change someone's vote?

[Guest MikeSC]

Kerry said that he would reward companies that dont outsource,

Which is of precious little use to the economy --- and will not actually happen since his wife is tied to one that does so.

and that he would repeal the tax cut that the rich are benefitting from greatly.

A tax hike? Lovely.

 

As the Club for Growth points out, the problem is that the person defining "rich" --- is John Kerry. You'd be shocked what could fall under that heading.

He also said that he would raise up student loans so that students aren't paying them off for so long after they leave school.

And that won't cost much.

And that he wants to invest in education, and technology to create better jobs. 

Cliches and banal generalities aren't exactly policy proposals.

Oh and it's nice of Bush to say that "Our economy is creating more jobs than it has in a long time" but dew to a slump in employment in the summer he stopped saying that.

Actually, the job growth was more than the initial numbers.

 

As it ALWAYS is.

The economy is shit right now, tax cuts will not help it.

Was the economy "shit" in 1996?

-=Mike

[Guest Urine Sane]

In the 80's and early 90's, Presidents Reagan and Bush Sr. claimed that supply-side economics would lead to a boost in the economy that would eliminate the record deficits "in two, maybe three years." They believed that by granting tax cuts (most of which went to rich people and corporations) the economy would drastically grow and expand...but even people within these administrations called these policies "Trojan Horse" scams to funnel more money to the rich.

 

By the time the "Reagan Revolution" was over, George Bush Sr. was running a record annual deficit of $290 billion per year. The United States was in a recession, and future generations would be paying back the debt of our leaders failed economic policies.

 

But is there andthing to compare this to? Is there any reasonable, successful plan we can follow in order to improve our economy?

 

When Bill Clinton took office in 1992 he intentionally reversed the Reagan and Bush Sr. formulas, raising taxes on the wealthy and reducing them on the lowest wage earners. Many republicans predicted the arrival of the Apocolypse. Bob Dole said the stock market would collapse. Newt Gingrich said the world would fall into another Great Depression...

 

What actually happened during Clinton's two terms?

 

Between 1992 and 2000, the U.S. economy produced the longest sustained economic expansion in U.S. history. It created more that 18 million new jobs, the highest level of job creation ever recorded. And at the end of his presidency, the US economy was booming with a $236 billion surplus.

 

So it would make sense for us to learn from history, to follow economic policies of the past that have worked, and to learn from the mistakes of those that did not.

 

But when Bush Jr. assumed the presidency in 2001, he brought back the supply side economic principles of his father, giving tax cut after tax cut to the rich. And in just one term, Bush managed to turn a $236 billion surplus into a $500 billion deficit; the largest in the history of the United States.

 

Debt would pile up for future generations, healthcare costs would skyrocket, and social security funds would be decimated while the wealthy, and those involved in energy and drug industries would prosper like never before. Bush defended his policies and blamed "the Clinton recession." Al qaeda, and the war on Iraq for his record-high deficit.

 

...but who or what was really to blame?

 

At the end of the Clinton presidency it was estimated that the ten year budget projection would yield a 5.6 trillion dollar surplus. The future looked bright, our country seemed to be headed in the right direction.

 

So what happened? Where did all that money go? And what did our future really look like after 4 years of Bush?

 

In his first days as president, George Bush skimmed 1.3 trillion off this surplus and gave it back to "the people"...and when I say "the people" I mean America's wealthiest people. Much like in the past, this did little to boost the economy.

 

In 2000, when George W. Bush was running for president, he made a speech in Chicago in which he promised he would not touch the $2.5 trillion Clinton had set aside to fix the grave Social Security problems looming in the future.

 

Within the first year of his presidency, Bush had broken his promise. And within another, the entire Social Security "lock box" had been completely depleted and it was apparent that deficits would run into the future...but Bush didn't intentionally raid the Social Security lock box, which would likely lead to the privatization of Social Security...or did he?

 

Ok, but what about all the wars we fought? Isn't the where all the money went?

 

Bush supporters like to blame the deficit on national security and defending the United States from terrorists and Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, but according to figures released by the bipartisan Congressional Budget Office, the cost of George W. Bush's tax cuts is nearly three times as great as the cost of war - including increased spending for homeland security and rebuilding after September 11th.

 

Economists believe that most of the growing deficits can simply be attributed to a slump in the economy...and the fact that Bush's only way of dealing with this slump conveniently was to throw more money at the rich people and enacting unhelpful tax cuts to achieve political gain.

 

Bush's second round of major tax cuts in 2003 ran up even more debt for our country. Most of the money went into the pockets of the rich, and even Bush's former secretary of treasury Paul O'Neil said the money could have been better spent and that this tax cut served as a means for political gain.

 

At the same time Bush never failed to sign a single spending bill that he was approched with. While Republicans have traditionally griped over tax and spend Democrats, spending increased almost twice as much under Bush than it did under Clinton. With our nation going further into debt, and the economy in a slump. Bush was approving spending on silly programs such as missle defense and missions to Mars.

 

Ultimately the debt incurred to pay off rich people would be picked up by your average middle class family that would pay more as a result of soaring health care costs, depleted retirement funds, record unemployment levels, lower salaries, and an overall weak economy.

 

In the end, Bush's economic policies have left us with a future that carries $5.6 trillion of extra debt in the next ten years...a turn around of nearly $11 trillion in just one term!

[teke184 0]

Bush says we're going to continue blah blah blah.  He hasn't done anything positive, so does that mean he's going to continue to run the economy into the ground?

 

I want Clinton Back!

You're one of the few.

 

Have fun worshipping this day's Calvin Coolidge.

-=Mike

Warren G. Harding is more appropriate... both were surrounded by schemers and crooks on all levels and resulted in tons of indictments. Coincidentally, BOTH had a great economy throughout their presidencies as well, although only one of them is seen as beloved by anyone.

[teke184 0]

By the time the "Reagan Revolution" was over, George Bush Sr. was running a record annual deficit of $290 billion per year. The United States was in a recession, and future generations would be paying back the debt of our leaders failed economic policies.

By pure economic terms, we did NOT have a recession in the early 1990s.

 

A recession, by definition, has two consecutive quarters of negative growth. I had the numbers back when I took Econ 201 and it was minimal growth for one quarter (a fraction of a percent, IIRC) and low negative percentage growth for another quarter before resuming strong growth.

 

 

By those definitions, we had nearly 20 years of strong growth from 1982 (the low point of the Reagan economy) to late 2001 (The aftermath of 9/11).

 

 

 

The economy was already slowing down in 2000, right before the Florida election quagmire, but I don't believe it actually went into negative growth until 9/11, which was due to massive changes that happened overnight including hugely increased security costs, the disappearance of tourism in many areas for months, etc.

 

 

It also didn't help that the Dot Com bubble burst as well as major scandals involving Tyco, WorldCom, Arthur Anderson, and Enron being exposed.

The former pretty much wrecked the economy of Silicon Valley and the latter four have had a huge impact on business and accounting practices.

 

Enron was also the ringleader in schemes to induce power shortages of the Western US in 2000, which spiked energy prices and had a significant negative economic impact on the whole country.

 

(Raising energy prices artifically harms EVERYONE in the country because the cost-of-business for every transaction goes up as a result. Also, for those who want to blame Bush for Enron and other companies, keep in mind that they'd been cooking the books for YEARS before it caught up with them during the Bush administration.)

[teke184 0]

But when Bush Jr. assumed the presidency in 2001, he brought back the supply side economic principles of his father, giving tax cut after tax cut to the rich.  And in just one term, Bush managed to turn a $236 billion surplus into a $500 billion deficit; the largest in the history of the United States.

This is another semantics argument waiting to happen...

 

 

This country has ALWAYS lived on deficit economies, going all the way back to the Revolutionary War. The country would borrow a ton of money, pay it back over decades then, around the time the country was solvent, they'd go out and borrow even MORE money.

 

 

On top of that, it's unfair to treat all deficit figures as straight dollar amounts because the strength of the dollar has changed over time. A 2004 dollar can't buy what a 1945 dollar could because of the inflation in currency over the course of 60 years.

 

The deficit as a percentage of a year's Gross Domestic Product (everything produced in a country) is a much better indicator than straight dollar amounts because the total amount of the budget helps account for inflation.

 

 

The following graph from the University of California at Berkeley's Economics classes, a conservative think tank if there ever was one </sarcasm>, shows the percentage of the Gross Domestic Product that was either in surplus or in deficit over the last 100+ years.

 

 

 

As you can see, the country had been running deficits almost continually since the days of Dwight Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy, with about 30 straight years of deficits starting with Lyndon B. Johnson's presidency in the mid-1960s.

 

 

While the percentage of the deficits had grown under the Reagan years, deficits were hardly a new thing and having them GREATLY offset the economic turmoil of the 1970s, which started due to Lyndon Johnson deciding to have his cake (pass the Great Society programs) and eat it too (fight the Vietnam War) in the mid-60s.

 

Things reached a head under Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s, as inflation had reached staggering heights and the average worker's pay wasn't increasing at the same rate as the Cost Of Living. (Cost Of Living is the yearly change in the cost of buying standard necessities, such as milk and bread, due to inflation's effect on the value of a dollar)

 

 

Reagan's economic plan, while derided even by his own VP (Bush Sr.) as "voodoo economics", did what no one thought was possible anymore and stimulated HUGE growth in the economy without creating double-digit inflation at the same time.

 

That put the skids on inflation and, in 1982, jump-started a dead economy into 9 years of near-continuous growth then, after one no-growth period and one negative growth period, ten more years of growth at the end of Bush Sr.'s term and throughout Clinton's entire eight-year term.

 

 

While it would be pretentious to say that Reagan's economic policies are fully responsible for the growth, his policies DID help turn around an economy that had been hurting for about 15 years. The turnaround created opportunities that people took advantage of and were very successful as a result.

[Guest Urine Sane]

from http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/080104Z.shtml

White House Projects Highest Deficit Ever

    By The Associated Press

    The New York Times

 

    Saturday 31 July 2004

 

    Washington - This year's federal deficit will soar to a record $445 billion, the White House projected Friday in a report provoking immediate election-season tussling over how well President Bush has handled the economy.

 

    The administration's annual summertime budget update forecast shortfalls falling to $331 billion next year, then fading to $229 billion by 2009. For each year, the red ink was smaller than the White House envisioned six months ago.

 

    The analysis was released the same day the Commerce Department said economic growth slowed this spring to an annual rate of 3 percent, well below the 3.8 percent spurt that many economists expected. The slowdown was caused by a spending cutback by consumers in the face of high gasoline costs, the department said.

 

    Administration officials hailed the budget figures as a solid improvement over the deficits analysts forecast early this year, and said they were on their way to their goal of halving this year's shortfall in five years. The White House estimated a $521 billion budget gap for 2004 in February, while the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicted a $477 billion deficit.

 

    "This improved budget outlook is the direct result of the strong economic growth the president's tax relief has fueled," said White House budget director Joshua Bolten.

 

    He conceded that the red ink remained at "unwelcome" levels, but said the report was still "good news" because of the reduction from earlier estimates.

 

    Democrats contrasted the $445 billion projection with the $262 billion surplus for this year that Bush projected in 2001, when he was persuading Congress to approve the first of his tax cuts.

 

    The shortfall will be the third consecutive - and ever-growing - deficit under Bush, following four consecutive annual surpluses under President Clinton. Democrats said the turnabout underscored the damage done by Bush's tax cuts and his poor stewardship of the economy, and criticized the White House praise for the report.

 

    "What we've got now is a president of the United States who is actively misleading the American people on the financial condition of the country," said Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota, top Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee. "Shame on him."

 

    The White House attributed this year's improvement to the collection of $82 billion more in revenue than anticipated, reflecting stronger economic activity. That was partly offset by $6 billion more in spending than expected, largely for Medicaid and Medicare.

 

    The projection, if accurate, would mean the government will have to borrow 19 percent of the $2.32 trillion it expects to spend this year.

 

    Last year's $375 billion deficit was the largest ever. When adjusted for the loss of purchasing power caused by inflation, only the shortfalls during World War II have exceeded the projected $445 billion shortfall.

 

    The Concord Coalition and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, bipartisan groups that advocate balanced budgets, said the report showed deficits must be controlled.

 

    "We cannot continue to allow this burden to multiply for our children and our children's children," said Maya MacGuineas, the committee's executive director.

 

    The White House said this year's actual deficit could well be smaller because federal agencies often overestimate expected spending. The government's budget year runs through Sept. 30, so the final figures will be in shortly before the Nov. 2 elections.

 

    Administration officials say a $445 billion deficit would be manageable because it would be 3.8 percent the size of the economy - well under the 6 percent ratio during the worst of the red ink under President Reagan.

 

    "I am pleased with the direction we are moving in," said House Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle, R-Iowa. Continuing a Republican theme, he and others said the numbers showed spending must be constrained.

 

    Democrats said by only extending five years, the projections ignored the longer-term budget crisis looming as the baby boom generation starts retiring later this decade.

 

    The report included the $25 billion Congress recently approved for U.S. action in Iraq and Afghanistan. But Democrats noted it ignored the next request for those wars the White House will make early next year, and the costs of easing the alternative minimum tax's effect on middle-income families.

 

    "There's no shock, there's no shame and there's no solution" from the White House, said Rep. John Spratt of South Carolina, lead House Budget Committee Democrat.

 

    The report also boosted the estimate of Medicare spending by $67 billion over the next five years. It said $26 billion was to correct costs left out of Bush's budget last February, with the rest reflecting new estimates for the program's spending.

 

    Medicare, the government's health insurance program for the elderly and disabled, spends about $300 billion a year. It already faces questions about its solvency because of the burden the baby boomers will place on it, and growing medical costs.

 

    The report was released a day after the Democratic National Convention and the same day Congress began hearings on the Sept. 11 commission's final report. The deficit projection was due July 15, a date often ignored by administrations of both parties.

 

    Bolten said the report was not ready earlier, but Democrats said the timing was aimed at hiding it.

[Guest MikeSC]

In the 80's and early 90's, Presidents Reagan and Bush Sr. claimed that supply-side economics would lead to a boost in the economy that would eliminate the record deficits "in two, maybe three years."

That also required Congress to not spend like --- well, Bush has done thus far.

They believed that by granting tax cuts (most of which went to rich people and corporations) the economy would drastically grow and expand

Which, mind you, happened.

but even people within these administrations called these policies "Trojan Horse" scams to funnel more money to the rich.

And these people are?

By the time the "Reagan Revolution" was over, George Bush Sr. was running a record annual deficit of $290 billion per year.

And?

The United States was in a recession, and future generations would be paying back the debt of our leaders failed economic policies.

You are aware that the deficits didn't cause the recession, right?

But is there andthing to compare this to?  Is there any reasonable, successful plan we can follow in order to improve our economy?

 

When Bill Clinton took office in 1992 he intentionally reversed the Reagan and Bush Sr. formulas, raising taxes on the wealthy and reducing them on the lowest wage earners.  Many republicans predicted the arrival of the Apocolypse.  Bob Dole said the stock market would collapse.  Newt Gingrich said the world would fall into another Great Depression...

 

What actually happened during Clinton's two terms?

 

Between 1992 and 2000, the U.S. economy produced the longest sustained economic expansion in U.S. history.

Of course, the economy was in full recovery during 1992 --- and Clinton had that whole dotcom bubble and accounting scandals to boost things up.

 

The 1990's was simply the 1920's replayed --- but with controls to prevent a total banking collapse.

It created more that 18 million new jobs, the highest level of job creation ever recorded.

Of course, since Presidents have very little control over job creation for the most part...

 

Hell, I'll bite --- what Clinton policy led to this? Keep in mind, his own advisors say that they had little to do with the economic boom.

But when Bush Jr. assumed the presidency in 2001, he brought back the supply side economic principles of his father, giving tax cut after tax cut to the rich.  And in just one term, Bush managed to turn a $236 billion surplus into a $500 billion deficit; the largest in the history of the United States.

As a percetnage of GDP, it's not that big.

 

BTW, you didn't mention the massive recession Clinton left Bush with. Odd.

Debt would pile up for future generations, healthcare costs would skyrocket, and social security funds would be decimated while the wealthy, and those involved in energy and drug industries would prosper like never before.

Care to provide anything resembling evidence to back up the hyperbole here?

Bush defended his policies and blamed "the Clinton recession." Al qaeda, and the war on Iraq for his record-high deficit.

 

...but who or what was really to blame?

 

At the end of the Clinton presidency it was estimated that the ten year budget projection would yield a 5.6 trillion dollar surplus.

The "estimate" didn't take into account the total dotcom collapse ansd the stock market hemhorraging due to the accounting scandals that caused heavyweights like Enron to go under.

The future looked bright, our country seemed to be headed in the right direction.

Provided one didn't look at the figures.

So what happened?  Where did all that money go?  And what did our future really look like after 4 years of Bush?

I guess you missed the dotcom collapse. Or the demise of Enron. Or the Global Crossing problems. Or the Tyco problems.

 

It was in all the papers.

In his first days as president, George Bush skimmed 1.3 trillion off this surplus and gave it back to "the people"...and when I say "the people" I mean America's wealthiest people.  Much like in the past, this did little to boost the economy.

Everybody who pays income taxes got a break. Deal with it.

 

And all it did was lessen a massive recession.

In 2000, when George W. Bush was running for president, he made a speech in Chicago in which he promised he would not touch the $2.5 trillion Clinton had set aside to fix the grave Social Security problems looming in the future

Clinton hadn't set aside a dime, hate to tell ya.

Within the first year of his presidency, Bush had broken his promise.  And within another, the entire Social Security "lock box" had been completely depleted and it was apparent that deficits would run into the future

You are aware no "lock box" ever existed, right?

And at the end of his presidency, the US economy was booming with a $236 billion surplus

Yup. Thanks for the recession, Clinton.

...but Bush didn't intentionally raid the Social Security lock box, which would likely lead to the privatization of Social Security...or did he?

It needs to be privatized, hate to break it to you. And the "lock box" is a non-existant entity.

Bush supporters like to blame the deficit on national security and defending the United States from terrorists and Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, but according to figures released by the bipartisan Congressional Budget Office, the cost of George W. Bush's tax cuts is nearly three times as great as the cost of war - including increased spending for homeland security and rebuilding after September 11th.

I'd like to see these figures as they reek of, well, bullshit.

Economists believe that most of the growing deficits can simply be attributed to a slump in the economy...and the fact that Bush's only way of dealing with this slump conveniently was to throw more money at the rich people and enacting unhelpful tax cuts to achieve political gain.

Ignoring that cutting taxes leads to an increase in tax revenue.

 

Oh, and truthout.org? Could you have found a mildly less useful or credible source?

-=Mike

[Justice 0]

In the 80's and early 90's, Presidents Reagan and Bush Sr. claimed that supply-side economics would lead to a boost in the economy that would eliminate the record deficits "in two, maybe three years." They believed that by granting tax cuts (most of which went to rich people and corporations) the economy would drastically grow and expand...but even people within these administrations called these policies "Trojan Horse" scams to funnel more money to the rich.

 

By the time the "Reagan Revolution" was over, George Bush Sr. was running a record annual deficit of $290 billion per year. The United States was in a recession, and future generations would be paying back the debt of our leaders failed economic policies.

 

But is there andthing to compare this to? Is there any reasonable, successful plan we can follow in order to improve our economy?

 

When Bill Clinton took office in 1992 he intentionally reversed the Reagan and Bush Sr. formulas, raising taxes on the wealthy and reducing them on the lowest wage earners. Many republicans predicted the arrival of the Apocolypse. Bob Dole said the stock market would collapse. Newt Gingrich said the world would fall into another Great Depression...

 

What actually happened during Clinton's two terms?

 

Between 1992 and 2000, the U.S. economy produced the longest sustained economic expansion in U.S. history. It created more that 18 million new jobs, the highest level of job creation ever recorded. And at the end of his presidency, the US economy was booming with a $236 billion surplus.

 

So it would make sense for us to learn from history, to follow economic policies of the past that have worked, and to learn from the mistakes of those that did not.

 

But when Bush Jr. assumed the presidency in 2001, he brought back the supply side economic principles of his father, giving tax cut after tax cut to the rich. And in just one term, Bush managed to turn a $236 billion surplus into a $500 billion deficit; the largest in the history of the United States.

 

Debt would pile up for future generations, healthcare costs would skyrocket, and social security funds would be decimated while the wealthy, and those involved in energy and drug industries would prosper like never before. Bush defended his policies and blamed "the Clinton recession." Al qaeda, and the war on Iraq for his record-high deficit.

 

...but who or what was really to blame?

 

At the end of the Clinton presidency it was estimated that the ten year budget projection would yield a 5.6 trillion dollar surplus. The future looked bright, our country seemed to be headed in the right direction.

 

So what happened? Where did all that money go? And what did our future really look like after 4 years of Bush?

 

In his first days as president, George Bush skimmed 1.3 trillion off this surplus and gave it back to "the people"...and when I say "the people" I mean America's wealthiest people. Much like in the past, this did little to boost the economy.

 

In 2000, when George W. Bush was running for president, he made a speech in Chicago in which he promised he would not touch the $2.5 trillion Clinton had set aside to fix the grave Social Security problems looming in the future.

 

Within the first year of his presidency, Bush had broken his promise. And within another, the entire Social Security "lock box" had been completely depleted and it was apparent that deficits would run into the future...but Bush didn't intentionally raid the Social Security lock box, which would likely lead to the privatization of Social Security...or did he?

 

Ok, but what about all the wars we fought? Isn't the where all the money went?

 

Bush supporters like to blame the deficit on national security and defending the United States from terrorists and Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, but according to figures released by the bipartisan Congressional Budget Office, the cost of George W. Bush's tax cuts is nearly three times as great as the cost of war - including increased spending for homeland security and rebuilding after September 11th.

 

Economists believe that most of the growing deficits can simply be attributed to a slump in the economy...and the fact that Bush's only way of dealing with this slump conveniently was to throw more money at the rich people and enacting unhelpful tax cuts to achieve political gain.

 

Bush's second round of major tax cuts in 2003 ran up even more debt for our country. Most of the money went into the pockets of the rich, and even Bush's former secretary of treasury Paul O'Neil said the money could have been better spent and that this tax cut served as a means for political gain.

 

At the same time Bush never failed to sign a single spending bill that he was approched with. While Republicans have traditionally griped over tax and spend Democrats, spending increased almost twice as much under Bush than it did under Clinton. With our nation going further into debt, and the economy in a slump. Bush was approving spending on silly programs such as missle defense and missions to Mars.

 

Ultimately the debt incurred to pay off rich people would be picked up by your average middle class family that would pay more as a result of soaring health care costs, depleted retirement funds, record unemployment levels, lower salaries, and an overall weak economy.

 

In the end, Bush's economic policies have left us with a future that carries $5.6 trillion of extra debt in the next ten years...a turn around of nearly $11 trillion in just one term!

That is an exact quote from the stupid Anti-Bush game. Hilarious.

[Guest MikeSC]

What anti-Bush game?

 

We actually have a poster using a game to substitute his own thought?

-=Mike

[Justice 0]

Pure propaganda. It's sorta fun, though.

[Stephen Joseph 0]

This goes out to Urine Sane

 

Teke isn't an economist, but he's 100% right on the money with everything he said. Even the graphs he posted proved his point beyond a shadow of a doubt.

 

You've got to understand the difference between nominal dollars and real dollars. Anything in economics we want to know about will deal in real dollars, as Teke used.

 

However, I will correct Teke on one thing. The economy did experience two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth prior to 9/11. However, all trends pointed to a recovery that was occuring when the events of 9/11 transpired, shocking the economy and sending it back into recession.

 

You'll find it hard to argue against the fact that whatever happened in the early 1980s stimulated the greatest and longest growth period this country has ever seen.

[Guest MikeSC]

However, I will correct Teke on one thing. The economy did experience two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth prior to 9/11. However, all trends pointed to a recovery that was occuring when the events of 9/11 transpired, shocking the economy and sending it back into recession.

Legit question: Since, if I'm not mistaken, the full story of the corporate accounting scandals was not public at that point --- wouldn't that news, alone, have driven the country back into a recession? I can only imagine it would have had a chilling impact on investment.

 

Seems like 9/11 was just pouring on the problems financially.

-=Mike

[Jobber of the Week 0]

Reagan's economic plan, while derided even by his own VP (Bush Sr.) as "voodoo economics", did what no one thought was possible anymore and stimulated HUGE growth in the economy without creating double-digit inflation at the same time.

 

That put the skids on inflation and, in 1982, jump-started a dead economy into 9 years of near-continuous growth then, after one no-growth period and one negative growth period, ten more years of growth at the end of Bush Sr.'s term and throughout Clinton's entire eight-year term.

"Reaganomics" as a positive experience?

 

 

 

Now I've heard everything....

[teke184 0]

Reagan's economic plan, while derided even by his own VP (Bush Sr.) as "voodoo economics", did what no one thought was possible anymore and stimulated HUGE growth in the economy without creating double-digit inflation at the same time.

 

That put the skids on inflation and, in 1982, jump-started a dead economy into 9 years of near-continuous growth then, after one no-growth period and one negative growth period, ten more years of growth at the end of Bush Sr.'s term and throughout Clinton's entire eight-year term.

"Reaganomics" as a positive experience?

 

 

 

Now I've heard everything....

If you think "Reaganomics" was so bad, explain to me how it was worse than the "Malaise Days" of Jimmy Carter, with over 10% interest annually while the average person's salary was probably growing 4% during that same time.

 

 

By all accounts, the economy was completely in the shitter in the late 70s.

 

The only good thing I've EVER heard about the economy at that time was that any investments made in that time period that paid interest (bonds, CDs, etc.) were locked into double-digit interest, which was only good because the interest rates dropped so drastically during the Reagan years and it was impossible to get that kind of interest on any normal investments.

[teke184 0]

However, I will correct Teke on one thing.  The economy did experience two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth prior to 9/11.  However, all trends pointed to a recovery that was occuring when the events of 9/11 transpired, shocking the economy and sending it back into recession.

Legit question: Since, if I'm not mistaken, the full story of the corporate accounting scandals was not public at that point --- wouldn't that news, alone, have driven the country back into a recession? I can only imagine it would have had a chilling impact on investment.

 

Seems like 9/11 was just pouring on the problems financially.

-=Mike

Without 9/11, it may not have caused a recession but assuredly would have caused the huge drops in the Dow we've seen since then.

 

 

It would have made stock investments much riskier overnight, which would have caused many people to sell out while they could and depress the value of the entire stock market.

 

 

The main changes that would happen would be that companies couldn't count on offering new shares of stock to the public to generate money but, instead, getting loans.

 

This would be tougher for some companies than others, as Dunn and Bradstreet had already rated a lot of companies like K-Mart as "Junk Bonds", meaning an inordinately high risk would be taken by lending them money and that they'd have to pay interest on their loans MUCH higher than the average company would.

[Guest Urine Sane]

that truth.org article is from The New York Times.

[Styles 0]

that truth.org article is from The New York Times.

I think it had more credibility when we thought it was just from truth.org

[Guest MikeSC]

Reagan's economic plan, while derided even by his own VP (Bush Sr.) as "voodoo economics", did what no one thought was possible anymore and stimulated HUGE growth in the economy without creating double-digit inflation at the same time.

 

That put the skids on inflation and, in 1982, jump-started a dead economy into 9 years of near-continuous growth then, after one no-growth period and one negative growth period, ten more years of growth at the end of Bush Sr.'s term and throughout Clinton's entire eight-year term.

"Reaganomics" as a positive experience?

 

 

 

Now I've heard everything....

Only slashed unemployment from about 10% to about 5-6%. Slashed interest rates in a way nothing could.

 

Yup, it only whipped the previously-thought-impossible problem of stagflation.

 

Yup, that's some evil stuff.

that truth.org article is from The New York Times.

Sadly --- not any more believable.

-=Mike

[SuperJerk 0]

I'm getting a good laugh from reading this thread.

 

If any of you guys have any actual economic, historical, or military credentials, please let me know.

 

Right now you all sound like a bunch of college kids talking shit.

[Justice 0]

I'm getting a good laugh from reading this thread.

 

If any of you guys have any actual economic, historical, or military credentials, please let me know.

 

Right now you all sound like a bunch of college kids talking shit.

*Waits quietly for Popick to assert his creditials. All of them.*

[teke184 0]

Programmer for a state's Department of Revenue, mainly involved with getting the current system switched over to the new system and creating reports to represent the amount of money collected, total sales within the state, etc.

 

I generate data from which I ferret out specific information that the department's highest levels of management use with the state Legislature to influence new tax laws and I'm also heavily involved with reporting our department's handling of billions of dollars in collections.

 

That isn't in Popick's league when it comes to national-level economics but I know a shitload about various taxes including Individual Income, General Sales, Withholding, and others, including effects on the state level caused by changes in Federal tax rules.

 

 

I also have a business degree that included a lot of economics (Micro, Macro, AND International) as well as a sizable background in history due to my minor, specifically in military history including World War II and the Vietnam War.

 

I've had graduate-level courses in military tactics and history taught by military officers from the Royal Military College at Sandhurst as well as doing in-depth research for scholarly papers on previous military operations.

[SuperJerk 0]

I'm getting a good laugh from reading this thread.

 

If any of you guys have any actual economic, historical, or military credentials, please let me know.

 

Right now you all sound like a bunch of college kids talking shit.

*Waits quietly for Popick to assert his creditials. All of them.*

Is that someone who's posted on this thread?

[Justice 0]

I'm getting a good laugh from reading this thread.

 

If any of you guys have any actual economic, historical, or military credentials, please let me know.

 

Right now you all sound like a bunch of college kids talking shit.

*Waits quietly for Popick to assert his creditials. All of them.*

Is that someone who's posted on this thread?

Yes. Stephen Joseph. I called him "Popick" for short.

 

And trust me, he's going to lay down all his credentials on you.

[teke184 0]

Popick's full name is Stephen Joseph Popick, who is user "Stephen Joseph" on the board. AFAIK, he works for the US Gov't as an economist.

[SuperJerk 0]

I also have a business degree that included a lot of economics (Micro, Macro, AND International) as well as a sizable background in history due to my minor, specifically in military history including World War II and the Vietnam War. 

 

I've had graduate-level courses in military tactics and history taught by military officers from the Royal Military College at Sandhurst as well as doing in-depth research for scholarly papers on previous military operations.

Touche.

 

I seem to have accidentally stumbled into the world's smartest wrestling forum.

 

 

I have a B.S. in History with a minor in Sociology. All my grad work's been in Education, though. I am also a Navy vet.

 

 

I'm glad to see a forum where people can back up what they say.

 

**Offers olive branch to keep from looking like even bigger jackass than he already does.**

[Styles 0]

I also have a business degree that included a lot of economics (Micro, Macro, AND International) as well as a sizable background in history due to my minor, specifically in military history including World War II and the Vietnam War. 

 

I've had graduate-level courses in military tactics and history taught by military officers from the Royal Military College at Sandhurst as well as doing in-depth research for scholarly papers on previous military operations.

Touche.

 

I seem to have accidentally stumbled into the world's smartest wrestling forum.

 

 

I have a B.S. in History with a minor in Sociology. All my grad work's been in Education, though. I am also a Navy vet.

 

 

I'm glad to see a forum where people can back up what they say.

 

**Offers olive branch to keep from looking like even bigger jackass than he already does.**

Even though I AM just a college kid talking shit, I accept your olive branch on belhalf of the group.