Originally Posted By DouglasDubh Sorry, post 60 was supposed to contain a link to <a href="http://www.marktaw.com/culture_and_media/TheNationalDebtImages/TheNationalDebt.htm" target="_blank">http://www.marktaw.com/culture _and_media/TheNationalDebtImages/TheNationalDebt.htm</a>
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <<Are you really that obtuse? Wow.>> <Are your facts so faulty that you must resort to pejoratives? Wow.> Your obtuseness (when it suits you) has been well marked on these boards, and not just by me. In this instance it was not a perjorative, merely an observation. <<One would think that when I talked about previous adminstrations who had a better balance between revenues and spending than the current one, you would know that there were any number of administrations where this was the case - it is, in fact, pretty much common knowledge.>> <Such a statement would be relevant if administrations alone had the power to balance revenues and spending. Since they don't, your statement is non-responsive to my question.> Nice attempt at obfuscation. As I pointed out, EVERY combination of GOP and Dem. congress and white house has done a better job than the Bush II/DeLay bunch, with the exception of those during WWI, WWII, and the Depression - and Reagan. <<Just about every administration in our history - GOP president with Dem. congress, Dem. President with GOP congress, GOP/GOP and Dem/Dem alike have done a better job balancing the budget than then Bush II/DeLay bunch.>> <What nonsense.> Nope, facts. <Here's a site that actually notes what the deficit (or surplus) was for each year, and what the GDP was. In 26 of the 60 years from 1941 to 2000, we had a Democrat controlled Congress and a Democrat President. The average deficit for those years, as a percentage of GDP, was 4.3%.> Thanks for the chart. Because it shows how easily statistics can be manipulated and how willing some intellectually dishonest people are to manipulate them. The years 1942 to 1946 shows deficits through the roof, particularly as a percentage of GDP. But, of course, those were the (fiscal) years of a little thing called World War II. So what was the average for Dem/Dem congress and white house excluding the WWII years? <In the 28 years amongst those 60 that we had a Republican President and a Democrat Congress, the average deficit was 2.35%. The average with a Republican Congress and a Democrat President is .12%.> And since administrations propose budgets and Congresses typically do not alter them by more than a couple of percentage points, you have just made the opposite point to the one you thought you were making. But thanks. It's always entertaining when you do that. <<I DID present evidence that my recollection of their problem with it is more accurate than yours - what they've done since regaining power to fix it.>> <Or it's evidence that you're changing your recollection of what their criticism was to match what their criticism is now. > That's intellectually dishonest of you. I noted their objections at the time of the bill. It was also the first thing I said on the subject in this thread. It was you who then said (weakly), "that's not how I remember it." It also doesn't take a lot of work to find quotes from various Dem. congress people at the time of the debate over the bill (2003) spelling out this objection. Here's one I found in a few seconds on google, and the quote is from Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) in 2003. <a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/health/jan-june03/medicare_06-17.html" target="_blank">http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb /health/jan-june03/medicare_06-17.html</a> "And my concern is this is much more designed for what's best for pharmaceutical companies who don't want seniors all in one place under Medicare to be able to negotiate big, deep discounts rather than saying how do we best design something that is best for seniors to get them the medicine they need? " So this was indeed their objection at the time, and I'm remembering it correctly. You're remembering it the way your ideology compels you to. <<But don't let the facts get in the way of what you'd like to believe - you rarely do.>> <I believe facts, not your opinions or recollections.> My recollection is the fact, as we've seen. But as we've seen so often, you believe what your ideology tells you to believe, and then you tell yourself those are the facts. But thanks for playing. Oh, I also found this lovely little tidbit. "[ Knight-Ridder , 3/12/04] Bill Sponsor Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-LA) Earns Millions After Taking Job As Head Of Drug Industry Trade Association. "Retiring Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La., who stepped down earlier this year as chairman of the House committee that regulates the pharmaceutical industry, will become the new president and CEO of the drug industry's top lobbying group. Tauzin will begin work Jan. 3 heading the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, a powerful trade group that marshaled an army of lobbyists last year to successfully support a bill overhauling Medicare and establishing the first prescription drug benefit for seniors. Tauzin was a co-sponsor, and President Bush signed the bill into law a year ago... Tauzin gets a pay package reportedly worth at least $2 million a year, making him one of the highest-paid lobbyists in Washington."
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <Your obtuseness (when it suits you) has been well marked on these boards, and not just by me.> The fact that a couple of other people do it does not make it right, or correct. <As I pointed out, EVERY combination of GOP and Dem. congress and white house has done a better job than the Bush II/DeLay bunch, with the exception of those during WWI, WWII, and the Depression - and Reagan.> Even with all those exception, it's still not true. <Because it shows how easily statistics can be manipulated and how willing some intellectually dishonest people are to manipulate them.> Your site had already done that.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <Your obtuseness (when it suits you) has been well marked on these boards, and not just by me.> The fact that a couple of other people do it does not make it right, or correct. <As I pointed out, EVERY combination of GOP and Dem. congress and white house has done a better job than the Bush II/DeLay bunch, with the exception of those during WWI, WWII, and the Depression - and Reagan.> Even with all those exception, it's still not true. <Because it shows how easily statistics can be manipulated and how willing some intellectually dishonest people are to manipulate them.> Your site had already done that.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <So what was the average for Dem/Dem congress and white house excluding the WWII years?> 1.18% But why do we exclude the WWII years and not the Cold War or the War on Terror? Or the Korea or Vietnam Wars? <And since administrations propose budgets and Congresses typically do not alter them by more than a couple of percentage points, you have just made the opposite point to the one you thought you were making.> Since administrations typically do not propose budgets that vary more than a couple of percentage points from what they can get through Congress, I did nothing of the kind. <That's intellectually dishonest of you.> No, it's not. <So this was indeed their objection at the time, and I'm remembering it correctly.> I'm sorry, but one quote does not prove your point. The simple truth is the Democrats proposed spending more money on the program, and there's no evidence that it would have worked better. <But as we've seen so often, you believe what your ideology tells you to believe, and then you tell yourself those are the facts.> No, what we've seen so often is that you can't distinguish between facts and liberal opinion.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <<Your obtuseness (when it suits you) has been well marked on these boards, and not just by me.>> <The fact that a couple of other people do it does not make it right, or correct.> No, the fact that it's right and correct makes it right and correct. And it's quite a few others, not a couple. One would think you might take it as constructive criticism and use it to take a look at yourself, rather than reflexively assume there's nothing to it... but that wouldn't be like you. <<As I pointed out, EVERY combination of GOP and Dem. congress and white house has done a better job than the Bush II/DeLay bunch, with the exception of those during WWI, WWII, and the Depression - and Reagan.>> <Even with all those exception, it's still not true.> Those were the high-water marks of deficits. Bush II comes close. Other combos (GOP/GOP, Dem/Dem, and divided) have done better jobs of balancing the budget. That's what I said. And it's a fact. <<Because it shows how easily statistics can be manipulated and how willing some intellectually dishonest people are to manipulate them.>> <Your site had already done that.> Nice attempt at projection. The difference, of course, is that I showed how your site (or, actually, your reading of your site) did that, while you did not with mine. <<So what was the average for Dem/Dem congress and white house excluding the WWII years?>> <1.18%> Lower than Bush/DeLay then. Ta da. <But why do we exclude the WWII years and not the Cold War or the War on Terror? Or the Korea or Vietnam Wars?> Do you really need a little schooling on how and why WWII was different from those other periods? How we had just come through the Depression coupled with an isolationist period, and had to ramp up from fairly little defense spending to a total war economy virtually overnight, and how that would necessitate huge deficit spending? Why the threat of Hitler meant we had to spend every cent we could? How we were actually attacked by one Axis power, and had war declared on us by another, who came thisclose to occupying Britain as well as nearly the rest of Europe? How any shooting war on the scale of WWII will necessitate greater outlays than a cold war? Do I need to go on? <<And since administrations propose budgets and Congresses typically do not alter them by more than a couple of percentage points, you have just made the opposite point to the one you thought you were making.>> <Since administrations typically do not propose budgets that vary more than a couple of percentage points from what they can get through Congress, I did nothing of the kind.> Nice try, but the process remains. Administrations propose the budgets. <<That's intellectually dishonest of you.>> <No, it's not.> Yes it is, and I notice you didn't include the following sentence in your quote: "I noted their objections at the time of the bill." I did indeed, which completely blows apart your snarky attempt at historical revisionism, "Or it's evidence that you're changing your recollection of what their criticism was to match what their criticism is now." I didn't, and I was accurate in my characterization of their main objection. <<So this was indeed their objection at the time, and I'm remembering it correctly.>> <I'm sorry, but one quote does not prove your point.> It's one more quote than you provided to prove yours. And others aren't hard to find. <The simple truth is the Democrats proposed spending more money on the program, and there's no evidence that it would have worked better.> You provided no quote from a Democrat saying "my main objection to this bill is that it doesn't spend enough," as you contend was their main objection. Nor have you even provided evidence that they proposed spending more on it. In fact, surely you remember the hubbub from both Democrats and fiscally conservative Republicans (which doesn't describe the current administration) when it was revealed that the administration lowballed what the actual cost of the program would be to begin with. <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12118-2005Feb9.html" target="_blank">http://www.washingtonpost.com/ wp-dyn/articles/A12118-2005Feb9.html</a> "Some House and Senate Democrats called for a congressional investigation into the hard-fought 2003 Medicare prescription drug battle, in which an administration official said he was pressured to keep long-term cost estimates hidden from lawmakers. The White House defended its actions, disputing news reports that the drug benefit's 10-year cost would be $1.2 trillion and stressing that the actual net cost to the government after factoring in savings would be about $724 billion. Throughout the 2003 debate, supporters estimated the cost at $400 billion over 10 years." Don't you remember that? The administration kept saying it would cost 400B, then it came out later it would cost 2-3 times that amount. Here's how USA Today summarized it at the time: <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-03-30-medicare-usat_x.htm" target="_blank">http://www.usatoday.com/news/w ashington/2004-03-30-medicare-usat_x.htm</a> "Republicans heralded the law, passed in November, for overhauling the Medicare program and offering a first-ever prescription-drug benefit to seniors. But Democrats argued it would provide only modest help to some seniors while giving billions of dollars in new federal subsidies to drug manufacturers and private health insurers." Hey - that's what I said! Continuing... "In recent months, the law has been the subject of competing TV ad campaigns. Most recently, a Bush administration actuary charged that his higher cost estimates were withheld from Congress during its protracted debate. Those estimates could have influenced the votes of conservative Republicans who objected to the size and breadth of the legislation." <<But as we've seen so often, you believe what your ideology tells you to believe, and then you tell yourself those are the facts.>> <No, what we've seen so often is that you can't distinguish between facts and liberal opinion.> More projection. I've provided plenty of facts to back up my position. You've provided nothing. You've ASSERTED that Democrats wanted to spend more on the drug bill, but provided no back up or quotes to that effect. As so often before, your ideology tells you how things "must" be, whether they actually are or not.
Originally Posted By DAR The Insurance Company I work for just passed 1 trillion in life insurance coverage.
Originally Posted By DVC_dad I don't have the answers for Iraq, but I do think it is the right thing for us to stay the course, at least until such time that Iraq can somewhat handle it's own security. Bottom line, war is expensive.
Originally Posted By jonvn "The Insurance Company I work for just passed 1 trillion in life insurance coverage." Great. So if everyone dies, your company can pay for all of this.
Originally Posted By DAR ^^^Not that one. <<Great. So if everyone dies, your company can pay for all of this.>> That'll go over well.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <No, the fact that it's right and correct makes it right and correct.> Again you confuse an opinion with a fact. <Those were the high-water marks of deficits. Bush II comes close. Other combos (GOP/GOP, Dem/Dem, and divided) have done better jobs of balancing the budget. That's what I said.> Well, no, that's not what you said. <The difference, of course, is that I showed how your site (or, actually, your reading of your site) did that, while you did not with mine.> Hardly. <Lower than Bush/DeLay then.> Is it? Since your site doesn't show how it got any of it's numbers, I'm not so sure. <Do you really need a little schooling on how and why WWII was different from those other periods? How we had just come through the Depression coupled with an isolationist period, and had to ramp up from fairly little defense spending to a total war economy virtually overnight, and how that would necessitate huge deficit spending? Why the threat of Hitler meant we had to spend every cent we could? How we were actually attacked by one Axis power, and had war declared on us by another, who came thisclose to occupying Britain as well as nearly the rest of Europe? How any shooting war on the scale of WWII will necessitate greater outlays than a cold war? Do I need to go on?> I'm well aware that WWII was a much larger conflict and required a much greater draw on our resources than other wars, but that doesn't negate the fact that other conflicts still required spending. Simply saying that some deficit spending doesn't count and some does is dishonest. It certainly doesn't address the issue of fiscal responsibility - it isn't just raising taxes to match spending, because that causes the general economy to slow. True fiscal responsibility balances the needs of the government with the needs of the governed. <Administrations propose the budgets.> And increasing those budgets by small percentages can mean big increases in real dollars. <It's one more quote than you provided to prove yours.> I never attempted to prove my point. The simple fact is that the Democrats plan would have cost more.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <Why do you bother?> Because he's a liberal, and like too many liberals, believes that repeating an opinion, providing irrelevant facts, and making personal attacks somehow proves an argument.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <<No, the fact that it's right and correct makes it right and correct.>> <Again you confuse an opinion with a fact.> We differ in our opinion on how obtuse you are. Others here share my opinion, however, which is what I pointed out. <<Those were the high-water marks of deficits. Bush II comes close. Other combos (GOP/GOP, Dem/Dem, and divided) have done better jobs of balancing the budget. That's what I said.>> <Well, no, that's not what you said.> Well, yes. Yes it is. <<The difference, of course, is that I showed how your site (or, actually, your reading of your site) did that, while you did not with mine.>> <Hardly.> No, exactly. You tried to use those raw figures to show that the average of Dem/Dem Congresses/white houses had higher average deficits than Bush/DeLay. I pointed out that including the WWII years, when deficits were necessarily through the roof, threw off the numbers and made your attempt at manipulation dishonest. <<Lower than Bush/DeLay then.>> <Is it? Since your site doesn't show how it got any of it's numbers, I'm not so sure.> I believe YOUR site showed the numbers for Bush/DeLay higher than 1.18, did they not? <<Do you really need a little schooling on how and why WWII was different from those other periods? How we had just come through the Depression coupled with an isolationist period, and had to ramp up from fairly little defense spending to a total war economy virtually overnight, and how that would necessitate huge deficit spending? Why the threat of Hitler meant we had to spend every cent we could? How we were actually attacked by one Axis power, and had war declared on us by another, who came thisclose to occupying Britain as well as nearly the rest of Europe? How any shooting war on the scale of WWII will necessitate greater outlays than a cold war? Do I need to go on?>> <I'm well aware that WWII was a much larger conflict and required a much greater draw on our resources than other wars, but that doesn't negate the fact that other conflicts still required spending.> Not on anything like the same level. <Simply saying that some deficit spending doesn't count and some does is dishonest.> Trying to pretend WWII was anything but an aberration is what's dishonest. <It certainly doesn't address the issue of fiscal responsibility - it isn't just raising taxes to match spending, because that causes the general economy to slow. True fiscal responsibility balances the needs of the government with the needs of the governed.> And, as we've seen, Dem/Dem congresses, once you take away the WWII years, did a better job of that than Bush/DeLay. As did other combinations. Thanks for proving my point. <Administrations propose the budgets.>> <And increasing those budgets by small percentages can mean big increases in real dollars.> Could you be more vague, please? LOL! You're getting desperate. <<It's one more quote than you provided to prove yours.>> <I never attempted to prove my point. The simple fact is that the Democrats plan would have cost more.> Talk about confusing an opinion with a "simple fact!" You have provided NOTHING to make that claim credible. Nothing. You simply assume it as a given. That is called treating an opinion as a fact. That is, in fact, the definition of it. <<<Why do you bother?>> <Because he's a liberal, and like too many liberals, believes that repeating an opinion, providing irrelevant facts, and making personal attacks somehow proves an argument.> More projecting. Sad, really. Actually, jonvn, I bother because although I rarely expect to be able to pierce the thickness of Doug's ideology and make HIM change (or even use) his mind, a). I enjoy exposing his weaker arguments for the drivel they are, even as I sometimes enjoy answering his more substantive arguments with my own, on the increasingly rare occasions he bothers to offer some (he used to do so more often); and b). I hate it when he offers pure ideology like "the Democrats prescription plan would have cost more" as though it were a "simple fact," hoping I guess that people will read that and simply accept it. This little mini-thread has been instructive, though. It started when I stated that the Democrats' main objection to the prescription drug plan was to the provision prohibiting the government from negotiating for bulk prices with the pharma companies. He then came back with "that's not the way I remember it." The funny thing is, I'm sure that's exactly true. He didn't remember it that way, because his ideology REQUIRES him to remember it another way. But even when I point out a Democratic senator voicing that very objection at the time of the debate, and two newspapers of the day reporting it as I remembered it (the way it was), and he couldn't counter with a blessed thing, he still refuses to let the facts get in the way of his ideology. Instructive indeed.
Originally Posted By DVC_dad Could you guys please make your posts smaller? I am too lazy to re-re-re-read the posts. *sigh* Give War a Chance people. It's expensive and too early to leave.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder "Give War a Chance people. It's expensive and too early to leave." Nope. What do you call four years? I call it more than a chance. I call it long past our bedtimes for this little folly of Cheney and Bush. How long do you want this to go? Until YOUR kids get called? Enough's enough.
