GOP PRIMARY PROTEST VOTE

e-mail from Citizens Lobby | 1/18/2004 | Unknown

[JimRed]

If your state is holding a "primary" vote for the Republican candidate for president, Citizens Lobby strongly urges you to cast a "blank" ballot -- OR write in a candidate of your choice.

We recommend Tom Tancredo, Ron Paul, Pat Buchanan or Alan Keyes...

President Bush needs a wake call and your vote is a great way to send him a message.

[FreeReign]

GWB signed amnesty legislation? Wrongo.

I was going to post a correction after hittting the post button to quickly but instead I thought people would get the gist-o of my point -- and it does only add to my point.

[Howlin]

Don't tell them that.

You can't possibly be a conservative of ANY ilk unless you hate practically everything Bush has done.

[Owen]

Didn't someone show that Ronald Reagan spent more money as a percentage of GDP than GW Bush? Same reasons, too. You have to cut taxes and spend more to stimulate an economy in deep trouble.

[Howlin]

What good are your principles when you can use the power of an office to at least TRY to put them into action?

In my opinion, you're putting yourself before the country, no matter how you dress it up.

[EllaMinnow]

How does an untruth add to your point?

[Bob J]

I heard that not a single person from the Keyes campaign was offered a job in the Bush administration because members of his "team" (one in particular and an ex-freeper) angered them so badly during the negotiations to put Keyes on the Convention schedule.

What I heard was said at one meeting would curl your socks.

[FreeReign]

How does an untruth add to your point?

The correction adds to my point. Shall I diagram it for you?

[gatorbait]

We recommend Tom Tancredo, Ron Paul, Pat Buchanan or Alan Keyes...

Buchanan,isn't he the true conservative who ran with an avowed Marxist as his vice presidential pick? Ron Paul, isn't he the guy who figured out he could not win running as a Libertarian,, and say, hasn't he been on the same side as the Democrats over Iraq? True conservatives like them?

[gatorbait]

I'd vote for Osama Ban Laden before I'd vote for Pat Buchanan.

Allies

[savedbygrace]

If you've come to those conclusions, you've drawn it from something other than what I wrote.

Are you also purposely misunderstanding the point?

If you are a sales organization, and a significant number of former clients stop buying from you, do you blame THEM? If you do, then it's only a matter of time before you're out of business. Who do you blame then?

I never said, nor do I believe, that ALL conservatives agree with this position. I specifically wrote that there would be a large number of people who do agree. But I never said, nor intimated, that ALL conservatives would. You drew that out of thin air.

And I never said anything about a "true conservative" opinion. You have not-so-cleverly tried to change the point from a disagreement over SOME Bush policies and positions to "every single thing Bush has done." Did you misrepresent this intentionally? Would you be happier if most of the people who disagree with you on these points simply left the republican party? Are you really so intent on Bush supporters being 100% pure, that you are willing to push us non-purists out?

That's what it sounds like so far.

[EGPWS]

You have to cut taxes and spend more to stimulate an economy in deep trouble.

Ding, ding, ding....then Bob Barker speaks.

We have a winner!

However, If I may add to your post, "the costs of an attack on our country and doing what it takes to prevent it from happening again".

[JimRed]

Buchanan,isn't he the true conservative who ran with an avowed Marxist as his vice presidential pick? Ron Paul, isn't he the guy who figured out he could not win running as a Libertarian,, and say, hasn't he been on the same side as the Democrats over Iraq? True conservatives like them?

Hey, I didn't list the names, the e-mail did. Lets hear some constructive suggestions!

[solo gringo]

I live in a dimwit dist. and i write in my name because if you don't they give my vote to a dimwit.

[gatorbait]

Lets hear some constructive suggestions!

Feel freely to try.I'm sticking with the President,everything else is masturbation with a pipewrench.

[strongbow]

I wish we had a primary vote in Alaska. I have relatives in South Carolina however, I plan to urge them to write in Tancredo.

[Howlin]

You're the one threatening to stay away from the voting booth because of "some" things and attitudes you disagree with, not me.

But it doesn't matter how many analogies you write up, if voters stay away because of personal agendas, there's a big fat ZERO in Bush's column.

Now how can the people who vote FOR him be blamed for that?

And just so you know, if I ran a company where 91 percent of the people who bought my product kept buying it, somehow I'd be able to figure out that those other 9 percent probably didn't like it in the first place.

[Howlin]

However, If I may add to your post, "the costs of an attack on our country and doing what it takes to prevent it from happening again".

That old saw? ;-)

[deport]

Lets hear some constructive suggestions!

---

I'd suggest they forget about the Republican Presidential nomination and spend all this effort and energy in getting the most conservative they can find nominated and elected to their Congressional district and in the 34 Senate races....... That is where the legislation is developed, written.....

Now this may not be a constructive suggestion to most but it's the way things are going down in 04, imo. President Bush will be the Nominee of the Republican Party unless something unforeseen happens....

[deport]

Heck if President Bush loses only 9% or so he'll be doing good. In 2000 some 17% of the so called conservatives voted for Gore...... President Bush only got 81% of them. Heck at 91% that would be a gain of 10%..... Moving on up ....... Yep looks like that to me....

[Sabertooth]

Didn't someone show that Ronald Reagan spent more money as a percentage of GDP than GW Bush

GWB's non-defense discretionary spending is a greater percentage of GDP than Reagan's was, in Reagan's last four budgets.

Bear in mind, President Reagan had a more expensive Cold War to fight, and we aren't really talking about Defense Spending anyway, since most here favor a strong national defense; we're talking about non-defense discretionary spending.

Here's the pertinent CBO table...

Discretionary Outlays, 1962-2002
(As a percentage of GDP)
	Defense		International		Domestic		Total
1962	9.2		1.0		2.5		12.7
1963	8.9		0.9		2.7		12.5
1964	8.6		0.7		3.0		12.3
1965	7.4		0.7		3.2		11.3
1966	7.8		0.7		3.4		11.9
1967	8.9		0.7		3.6		13.1
1968	9.4		0.6		3.6		13.6
1969	8.7		0.4		3.2		12.4
1970	8.1		0.4		3.4		11.9
1971	7.3		0.3		3.7		11.3
1972	6.7		0.4		3.8		10.9
1973	5.9		0.4		3.7		9.9
1974	5.6		0.4		3.6		9.6
1975	5.6		0.5		4.0		10.1
1976	5.2		0.4		4.5		10.1
1977	4.9		0.4		4.6		10.0
1978	4.7		0.4		4.8		9.9
1979	4.7		0.4		4.6		9.6
1980	4.9		0.5		4.7		10.1
1981	5.2		0.4		4.5		10.1
1982	5.8		0.4		3.9		10.1
1983	6.1		0.4		3.8		10.3
1984	5.9		0.4		3.5		9.9
1985	6.1		0.4		3.5		10.0
1986	6.2		0.4		3.3		10.0
1987	6.1		0.3		3.1		9.5
1988	5.8		0.3		3.1		9.3
1989	5.6		0.3		3.1		9.0
1990	5.2		0.3		3.2		8.7
1991	5.4		0.3		3.3		9.0
1992	4.9		0.3		3.4		8.6
1993	4.5		0.3		3.4		8.2
1994	4.1		0.3		3.4		7.8
1995	3.7		0.3		3.4		7.4
1996	3.5		0.2		3.2		6.9
1997	3.3		0.2		3.1		6.7
1998	3.1		0.2		3.0		6.4
1999	3.0		0.2		3.0		6.3
2000	3.0		0.2		3.1		6.3
2001	3.1		0.2		3.2		6.5
2002	3.4		0.3		3.5		7.1
Source: Congressional Budget Office

Up front, let's understand that Presidents aren't responsible for the budget in the year in which they take office. That is the responsibility of the outgoing President. So President Reagan's Budgets are highlighted in red, from 1982 through 1989.

As of this writing, President Bush only has one bodget in this table for which he is responsible, 2002, which I've highlighted in blue. I've bold faced the numbers for non-defense and total discretionary spending of their outgoing predecessors, Presidents Carter and Clinton.

Note that in the President Carter's last year, non-defnese discretionary spending stood at 4.5% of GDP. It immediately dropped to 3.9% in President Reagan's first year, and held firm or declined in every one of his budgets, eventually ending up at 3.1% of GDP.

In President Bush's first year, he increased non-defense discretionary spending from President Clinton's final 3.2% of GDP, up to 3.5%, higher than it's been since 1985, when President Reagan was bringing it down.

President Reagan, like President Bush, had a legislature with only one chamber held by the GOP. Yet non-defense discretionary spending only declined under President Reagan, while it has increased under President Bush.

Looking at total discretionary spending, we see a 0.6% jump for President Bush over President Clinton, from 6.5% to 7.1%.

With President Reagan, however, we see that his total discretionary spending peaked in 1983 at 10.3%, only 0.2% higher than President Carter's final 10.1%, before dropping to 9.0% at the end of his term.

Again, President Reagan's figures include Cold War defense spending, which was a more expensive enterprise than the War on Terror.

Then numbers for President Bush are too few for a good sample, but one certainly can't extrapolate a trend of fiscal restraint from them.