Problems that I am having with this president

[MontePierce]

Most of you don't know me because I'm a lurker and have never really posted here. I am a life long Republican and have never voted for a Democrat for ANY office. I consider myself extremely conservative. Yet, at the moment I am having some serious issues with our president. I don't know exactly where to start so I'll just create a list.

1) No Child Left Behind - Besides the fact that this program was created by Ted Kennedy, my main issue is that it makes the federal government responsible for fixing schools. State and local governments are supposed to be running schools, not the federal government. What we're left with is people blaming the president when their schools are bad instead of the state and local officials who can actually do something about it but don't have to because they don't take the blame for it.

2) Department of Homeland Security - I realize that there is need to fight terror on the homefront and keep ourselves safe. But adding another cabinet department is just more bureaucracy that just isn't needed. We could have just as easily created another agency under the defense department to help law enforcement work with the federal government to fight terror. Creating a new cabinet department is something I'd expect from somebody like Clinton, not somebody like Bush.

3) Iraq war - I supported our president going into Iraq and I still do support the war effort. But what I've seen with Iraq so far is a large amount of mismanagement and that seriously concerns me. The defense department should have not "assumed" that the Iraqis would welcome us with open arms and should have been better prepared for the attacks that our troops face right now. And as the whole WMD's thing goes, I don't buy the argument that the President lied about them. However, the fact that George Tenet gave the president faulty intelligence is no excuse. Bush should've fired the guy's ass the day he took office, or at least after the intelligence failure's that led up to 9/11.

4) Not standing up the democrats in the senate - We control the white house and both houses of congress and yet this president has still let the democrats take advantage of us in the senate. He didn't stand up for Trent Lott after the whole incident at Strom's brthday party resulting in a good experienced leader resigning and being replaced with an inexperienced Frist. Frist has allowed the tax cut to be reduced to 350 billion and has yet to give the democrats any real challenge to their fillibusters on judicial nominees besides that joke of a 30 hour debate-a-thon.

5) Spending - This is what gets me the most. This president has spent an outrageous amount of money so far and driven up the defecits when in his first state of the union he said that he would cut spening and use the extra money for tax cuts and to pay off the national debt.

6) Outsourcing - I don't like this whole idea of a global economy. Making and selling goods in America has worked fine for many years, why do we need to change that?

So here I am in a bit of a bind. I will NOT vote for a democratic president because I refuse to put another Bill Clinton tax and spend liberal in the white house. Yet I've seen this president making stupid mistakes like Clinton did and spending money like Clinton tried to but congress wouldn't let him. I'm seriously considering staying home on election day.

[FRgal4u]

Troll alert! Troll Alert!

So easy to catch a Troll, read the self proclaimed - I am a Republican, never vote for a dim...

come here, kitty kitty..


LOL..

[Cold Heat]

I'm seriously considering staying home on election day.

Something you are used to doing I would guess!

[jstolarczyk]

Moby?!

[Right Strategy]

I agree with you on point 4 and the domestic spending (only) part within point 5,other than that forget it! Staying home and not voting only helps Kerry,the socialist,attain the power seat in the oval office-------bad idea! (smile)

[WFTR]

Some people are already assuming that you aren't being sincere. Maybe you aren't, but my position is similar to yours, and I am facing the same questions. My thoughts on the matter and two quarters will buy you a cup of bad coffee at a vending machine, but I'll give you my thoughts anyway.

We are in a war against the Muslim jihadists. They are going to keep killing Americans until we either destroy them or harm them so badly that they are forced to surrender and rescind their jihads against us. Everyone says that they will never surrender, and if that's true, I'm fine with killing every last member of Al Qaeda. In truth, I think we can force them to surrender. They may bluster, but they are no tougher than the Japanese were 60 years ago. When we hit the Japanese hard enough, they surrendered. Our only alternative to this kind of victory is to keep losing more of our freedom and keep suffering their attacks.

While I don't like every step that the president has taken in fighting this war against these horrible enemies, he's done an overall good job. Furthermore, he will do a better job than anyone else running. Kerry will try to seek a compromise that will be a kind of surrender on our part. The Libertarian Party candidate won't be likely to mount an effort against these enemies. The Constitution Party is less enthusiastic about fighting this war than the Democrats or Libertarians are. I don't think that the Reform Party is likely to nominate a candidate. By process of elimination, I would vote for President Bush.

On the domestic front, I agree with you about education, spending, jobs, and health care. I don't like everything that President Bush has done. On the other hand, I knew that I wouldn't like much of what he'd do when he was running back in 2000. We knew that he wouldn't be the candidate to lead us in the perfect conservative revolution. For the most part, he campaigned as someone who would try to slow the bleeding that liberalism has caused. He never campaigned as the guy who would heal all of the wounds. With the exception of campaign finance reform, he has been the president that he promised to be. If anything, he's been a little better than I expected in making judicial nominees. I also applaud the fact that he imposed a steel tariff for a few years to protect some steel industry jobs.

I disagree with you strongly about Trent Lott. While I think his comment at Strom Thurmond's birthday party should not have cost him his position, I'm glad to see him go. He was never an effective leader. He largely rolled over and played dead every time he was challenged.

The only reason that I might not vote for President Bush is that I haven't seen my candidate win in years. My vote seems to be a bad-luck curse on any candidate. If I'm comfortable that the president will win my state, I might vote third-party just to spare him the curse.

By all means, vote for conservatives down the ticket even if you can't support the president. The worst thing that can happen is for other Republicans to lose because you are disappointed with President Bush. Find conservatives at other levels and support them with your vote certainly and your time or money if possible.

Well, four and a half
Bill

[MontePierce]

Whoops never thought about voting for conservatives down the ticket. By all means I want a Republican congress and Republican local officials. But I am still weary on this president.

[MontePierce]

Oh yeah and I forgot to address what you said about defense. I don't have a problem with this president's foreign policy or defending our country in any way. I had no trouble supporting the war on terror or the war in Iraq. But when I see a war effort that seems to be very mismanaged, problems with our intelligence agencies, and our troops being in more danger than they have to be I get very concerned.

[MontePierce]

If by troll you mean a person who is praying for somebody to restore my confidence in this president, then by all means I am a troll.

[WFTR]

Your concerns are valid, and I share many of them. My only caveat about the intelligence is that right now we don't know how good or bad the intelligence was. David Kay doesn't think that we'll find WMD stockpiles and doesn't believe that those stockpiles were in Iraq at the start of the war. However, he admits that those stockpiles may have been moved to Syria. He advises against pursuing them further because Syria will never cooperate.

I agree that Syria won't cooperate and that we won't find WMD stockpiles that were sent to Syria, but I disagree with Mr. Kay when he tries to brush aside that question. If Iraq had stockpiles and sent them to Syria, then our intelligence wasn't wrong. Our intelligence should have warned us that the weapons were being moved, but that's a different and much less critical failure. We have to understand exactly what happened and ensure that we investigate the right "failure." If the WMD stockpiles never existed, that's one failure. If they existed but were moved just prior to the war, that's a different failure. I supported the war either way, but the first failure might have impacted whether we went to war. The second scenario, not knowing that the weapons had been moved, shouldn't have impacted the war decision at all. If we hadn't gone to war, Syria would likely have returned the stockpiles to Iraq.

Either way, I hope that this discussion helps with your decision. Do you mind telling me where you live? Are you in a swing state?

Well, four and a half
Bill

[katz]

Yes, and tomorrow we'll hear a call on C-Span saying, "I am a Republican but I won't vote for GWB this year".

[Cold Heat]

Yeah, he listed six issue that he has problems with the president on.

Most of us on the forum have at least nine or ten.

If a democrat were in office we would have dozens, hundreds, and so on.

Single or limited issue voters do not make for good decision making.

they should not be voting.IMHO

[TatieBug]

You shouldn't have made it so long. As soon as I realized your intent stopped reading and decided to express my thoughts to you. Nothing stupid about us Freepers...

[MontePierce]

I agree with you on WMD's and intelligence 100%, however the president is still liable in many aspects. And I live in Louisiana, so it is sort of a swing state. Should I decide not to vote for Bush I will make sure to go vote to keep another Mary Landrieu out of the Senate.

[MontePierce]

I'm confused as to what you are saying here. I've never considered freepers stupid, and if I did, I wouldn't be reading this forum.

[Starcutter]

I must agree with you on worries concerning education and some other spending issues but let me give you my theory on why President Bush is the right man for the job right now.

First of all, no President is ever going to make anyone happy with every choice he/she makes, as a President must be the President for all the people not just the republicans or democrats or the rest of the citizens. I think Bush is trying to do something for all of the people in this country which is why he has irritated many in his base.

Secondly I think the deficit is not a serious problem or a worry to this administration since it is smaller, percentage wise as it has been in the past. If you look back to the 80's, Reagan had a very large deficit due to his increase in the defense budgets and a democratic house that would not control it's spending. This ultimately had no negative impact. Look at the economic boom of the 90's for proof of that. The Bush team does have a plan however to cut the deficit in half in his second term and to shore up spending.

Third, The total vision of changing the face of the middle east is a brilliant long term goal. President Bush probably did not come up with this idea on his own but it was an idea that has been developing for quite some time and was put into action after 911 due to necessity. Saddam was a prime target as he had left himself wide open for not following the many resolutions put forth by the UN. If we are able to plant the seeds of democracy there it will benefit mankind in a way that nothing any President has done since Reagan won the cold war. We also needed to flex our military muscle to prove to the terrorists and their supporters around the world that the United States was not the weak nation that our former administration had lead the world to believe.

In closing, this administration has manged to take an economy that was sliding into recession when it came into office and was then hit with the worst case of terrorism in our history as a nation and turn it completely around to one of the best economies in recent history in only three short years. This is a remarkable feat! We are fighting terrorism and have managed to topple a regime of madmen who had slaughtered nearly millions of people and set two nations free (Iraq & Afghanistan). This with losing less than 1,000 American lives (God bless them all) in nearly a two years of war. This is also a remarkable feat! Surely everything is not peachy keen but I must say the Bush team has done and excellent job all in all. He will get my vote in November!

[jstolarczyk]

Easy to criticize, haven't either of you come up with workable solutions. How do you end entitlements that Americans, after 50 years of DEM control, now consider a right. What do you do about tens of thousands of baby boomers retiring daily and demanding a return on their social security and Medicare payroll payments? Please do not tell me either of you were swift boat OICs so you now are experts on humint and war reconstruction. Nobody believes these posts because you guys are parroting Kerry's talking points heard last night in the Milwaukee debates.

[Amelia]

Whoops never thought about voting for conservatives down the ticket.

You've gotta be kidding??? That never occured to you?

Also, your state and local governments aren't a concern to you?

[AffirmativeReaction]

While I agree with Bush on foreign policy, his complete lack of fiscal discipline is pissing me off. I am a fiscal conservative first and foremost, and Bush has been anything but fiscally conservative. As much as I detest "tax & spend", I detest even more "cut taxes and spend more". This is definitely not good economic policy. The more money Washington has to borrow, the less there is available for everyone else to borrow. From Economics 101, when something is in high demand (money), the price of that commodity increases (interest rates).

[Conservateacher]

Bush will be the nominee of the Repubs. Kerry will be the nominee of the DIMS. One of these two WILL win.

None of the other parties will win--NO Doubt about this!!!!

Given the previous facts---Who do you want to nominate judges?

Nuff said.