Originally Posted By Dabob2 <<It would force renegotiations, if he was really that intent on it.>> <If he thought that renegotiations would have helped, I'm sure he would have tried.> What are you, a mind-reader? Please. He never even attempted it once. <Considering that the Democrats reneged on several negotiations, he probably figured that would be futile.> Examples, please, of these "several negotiations" they reneged on? <<The truth is that Reagan raised government spending by raising the military budget more than he cut domestic.>> <No, the truth is that President Reagan raised both military spending and revenues, but not by as much as the Democrats raised domestic.> False. The raise in military spending was about 140 billion. Meanwhile: "The cuts - in ''discretionary'' domestic spending, from 5.7 percent of the gross national product in 1981 to 3.7 percent this year - have landed heavily on the poor and near-poor." So I'm not sure what you're including in "domestic" but if it includes things like entitlements or payment on the national debt that Reagan raised, that would be very intellectually dishonest on your part. <a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE6DD173BF935A25751C0A96E948260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all" target="_blank">http://query.nytimes.com/gst/f...nted=all</a> Meanwhile, our debt went through the roof. "Interest on the public debt increased from $95 billion in 1981 to $192 billion this year, as the total debt rose from 26.6 percent of the annual gross national product to 43 percent. Some Congressional critics believe that the Reagan Administration deliberately created the high deficits to force reductions in domestic spending. The Administration ''set about creating a fiscal crisis which they hoped would produce a political transformation,'' said Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Democrat of New York. ''When it did not, the crisis only deepened, and now it is with us in protean and unnerving manifestations. '' Prof. Richard Neustadt, a political scientist at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, said: ''Mr. Reagan has been willing to tolerate extraordinary deficits and extraordinary defense expenditures, by previous standards, for the sake of keeping Congress from expanding domestic programs. It became the purpose of the deficits.'' <<You can't pretend military spending isn't government spending.>> <Can't and won't. It's actually called out for in the Constitution.> The level is not. <And President Reagan's military increases won the Cold War.> Typical conservative fantasy. Fiercely held, but a myth. Had we gotten a Breshnev clone in 1985 rather than Gorvachev, the Soviet Union could have limped along for another 10 years, and then I suppose Clinton would have "won" the cold war. Gorbachev policies changed the dynamic - had we gotten a Breshnev clone determined to carry out similar policies, there's no reason to think that the last half of the 80's would have been any different then the first half, or that the Soviets wouldn't have carried on the way North Korea does now before finally collapsing. <I did that, x-number of years ago when we discussed this previously.> <I doubt that very much.> Of course you do. <<You just tried to pretend the Democrats were still to blame for the 80's deficits, as you continue to do now.>> <Now, as then, I recognize that both parties were to blame. Just that Democrats are more so.> Since Reagan raised military spending more than he cut domestic, and the Congress only tinkered around the edges of his budgets, that is not so.
Originally Posted By mrkthompsn <Didn't the very last Democratic president leave office with an actual surplus? After having paid off the monumental deficit left by the 2 previous Republican presidents? So mrkthompson I have to wonder what the hell your talking about. You trust the Repulicans budgetary skills more than the Democrats when the only fiscally responsible president in my adult lifetime was NOT a Republican.> They didn't pay the debt left over from the previous presidents (and the previous congresses that required the spending in the first place). They balanced the ~budget~ for THAT year only. They did not balance the debt. Previous debt continues. My point is that politicians should not be SPENDING excessively in the first place, regardless of their ability to balance it with revenue. It's the sheer spending that concerns me. Balancing a $1 trillion budget does not impress me in that the government needed to spend the $1 trillion in the first place. If they instead spent $50 billion max for a year, they would then have the ability to pay for previous debt. I guarentee Obama will come nowhere near of accomplishing this. And let me remind you again: I will be voting Libertarian for the third time in a row. I do not support the Republicans. But the Democrats would be the last on my list of choices.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 < If they instead spent $50 billion max for a year, they would then have the ability to pay for previous debt. I guarentee Obama will come nowhere near of accomplishing this.> I guarantee Clinton, McCain or Barr will come nowhere near to accomplishing that either. I agree with the need to be fiscally prudent, but a $50 billion dollar budget is a pipe dream. For starters, the Iraq War alone eats that up in about 4 months. <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23551693/" target="_blank">http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23551693/</a>
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <Since Reagan raised military spending more than he cut domestic, and the Congress only tinkered around the edges of his budgets, that is not so.> Since Congress did far more than "tinker", it is so.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 Show me the stats, please, or stop insisting on something that isn't true.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh Show me the stats, please, or stop insisting that something is true when it isn't.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan Here's a stat: $600 billion. That's the next big milestone on the cost of Iraq thus far, coming up soon. But we don't want to set a timetable. No, just keep the meter running for, well, as long as it takes. How anyone can in one breath support this administration and then lecture on the importance of "fiscal responsibility" is beyond ludicrous at this point.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <Show me the stats, please, or stop insisting that something is true when it isn't.> I showed the stats, in #277. You? Nothing. Just assertions of what you "know" to be true, but is actually only Doug's truthiness with no stats to back it up. As usual. So show me the stats, please, or stop insisting on something that isn't true. Oh - that's right. You can't.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <How anyone can in one breath support this administration and then lecture on the importance of "fiscal responsibility" is beyond ludicrous at this point.> And yet they do it.
Originally Posted By X-san ***Here's a stat: $600 billion. That's the next big milestone on the cost of Iraq thus far, coming up soon.*** Damned liberals and their spending habits!
Originally Posted By mrkthompsn <How anyone can in one breath support this administration and then lecture on the importance of "fiscal responsibility" is beyond ludicrous at this point.> Hence the reason Conservatives have abandoned Bush. The Liberal George Bush has ruined the Conservative Republican lifetime agenda. Vote Libertarian.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>Hence the reason Conservatives have abandoned Bush.<< A lot of them have, but here on these boards, the president has his fans. (Hell, looking at the approval ratings, they may be his last remaining fans, come to think of it.) But really, you can't blame the non-stop spending only on President Bush. True, he didn't veto a thing, but the house and senate were controlled by the GOP all those years. That's why this "party of fiscal responsibility" is a lot of blather. They had their chance and they spent just like Democrats (though perhaps on different specific programs). Many of them want to deny it now, or fling blame on George Bush since he's easy pickings at this point. But the reality is, the GOP is no more or less fiscally responsible than the Democrats.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>That's why this "party of fiscal responsibility" is a lot of blather. They had their chance and they spent just like Democrats (though perhaps on different specific programs).<< And for me, that's the key. I genuinely don't mind if government spends money on programs. I don't mind paying taxes to support those programs. But I'd like those programs to be on things worthwhile, instead of a botched war where thousands of our men and women in uniform lost lives and limbs while George W. Bush got on the job training. I love John Edwards' speeches on poverty; let's put some money towards that. How about the rebuilding of New Orleans, that should've been our top priority. Instead, we abandoned those people. What the hell kind of a nation abandons and entire city when it needs us? There's so much we could've been doing. Instead, we've been lining Erik Prince's pockets so he can send his "christian soldiers" in Blackwater to Iraq.
Originally Posted By DyGDisney BTW, this is what a 25% approval rating looks like: <a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=ya8LRa73cF4" target="_blank">http://youtube.com/watch?v=ya8LRa73cF4</a> The scary thing about his 25% approval rating is that, it actually means 1 out of every 4 American's APPROVE of him. It's amazing.
Originally Posted By X-san I'd say that makes sense considering the percentage of (even now) supporters we see here on LP. It's sad, but true.
Originally Posted By dshyates You know there were two rows of Nazi party members who were giving the "Seig Hial" salute as Herman Goring's (nazi leader) body was being removed from prison after he committed suicide the night before his excecution. And this was after the Nuremburg trial showed what hanious acts he committed. Like some here support the President, these Nazi's believed in what Hitler was trying to do. Just like DAR and Douglas think that W. is a hero for authorizing torture. So when W. is swinging from tha gallows, those 2 will still be saluting and claiming the rest of the world has either gone nuts or "don't get" what W. was accomplishing by torturing people and killing civilians for Halliburton's profit.
Originally Posted By X-san He'll never go to trial for any crimes, never mind getting convicted and executed.
Originally Posted By DAR <<Just like DAR and Douglas think that W. is a hero for authorizing torture>> I never said he was a hero, I'm just not going to lose any sleep over it.
