Posted on 02/12/2007 5:48:55 PM PST by Extremely Extreme Extremist
Moves Closer To Full-Fledged Presidential Run
(CBS/AP) WASHINGTON -- Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani on Monday defended the Iraq war and criticized Al Gore's global-warming movie.
As for his presidential ambitions, Giuliani coyly inched closer to a formal announcement.
"I am 100 percent committed," he said. "That official part, I still have to do a formal announcement. But we'll figure out how to do that. My idea is that I'm going to try to announce this in 100 different places."
Giuliani, a Republican, said he supports efforts to move California's 2008 presidential primary from June to February, a shift that would allow him to compete outside of conservative early voting states where his stands on gays, guns and abortion have been viewed as too liberal.
A number of other states are also considering moving up their primaries.
In a wide-ranging speech, Giuliani emphasized his experience as mayor during the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and his record on reducing crime, unemployment and other problems in the city.
He said the war in Iraq is crucial to combating global terrorism.
"What America needs is probably a reminder of why this is happening and why the sacrifice of those American lives, which is heartbreaking, is necessary," he said. "It's necessary because having a stable situation in Iraq will quicken our ability to defeat terrorism."
Pulling out of the country too quickly, he said, will allow terrorism to "get a home and a headquarters attached to Iran and Syria."
When asked about former Vice President Al Gore's Oscar-nominated documentary about global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth," Giuliani criticized the film as lacking in solutions.
Giuliani said he believes global warming is occurring but is not sure how much is caused by humans, and he suggested the U.S. should look at expanding its use of nuclear power and other alternative energy sources.
He also said the U.S. health care crisis must be solved by "preserving the private, competitive market-driven nature of health care."
"That's a much better solution than a topdown government plan," he said.
"Yay! Another Rudy thread!"
Just preparing for eight years of President Giuliani threads.
Apparently you don't understand that social liberalism produces the demand for big government.
That is really good! :)
Before Giuliani's January 1, 1994 inauguration, New York's economy was on a stretcher. Amid soaring unemployment, 235 jobs vanished daily. Financier Felix Rohatyn complained: "Virtually all human activities are taxed to the hilt." Punitive taxes helped fuel a $2.3 billion deficit.
Mayor-elect Giuliani sounded Reaganesque when he announced he would "reduce the size and cost of city government" to balance the budget. In his first State of the City address, he said: "We're going to cut taxes to attract jobs so our people can work."
Giuliani spent eight years keeping these promises.
"America's Mayor" cut or killed 23 levies, saving taxpayers $9.8 billion. Giuliani pared Gotham's top income-tax rate by 20.6%. Washington, D.C.'s CFO reported that between 1993 and 2001, local taxes on a family of four New Yorkers earning $50,000 fell 23.7%.
Giuliani cut the commercial-rent tax, curbed sales taxes, and curtailed the marriage penalty on taxpaying couples. Giuliani proudly shaved Gotham's hotel tax from 6% to 5 in 1994. Consequently, that tax's revenues soared from $135 million in Fiscal Year 1995 to $239 million in FY 2001.
Giuliani defends his supply-side instincts with bracing candor. Asked after September 11 if he would hike taxes, Giuliani called that "a dumb, stupid, idiotic, and moronic thing to do."
Giuliani's expenditure growth averaged 2.9% annually, while local inflation between January 1994 and December 2001 averaged 3.6%. His FY 1995 budget decreased outlays by 1.6%, while his post-9/11 FY 2002 plan lowered appropriations by 2.6%.
If President Bush had followed Giuliani's example and limited Washington's spending to 2.9% average, annual growth, the just-unveiled FY 2008 federal budget would cost $2.275 trillion, not $2.9 trillion, saving taxpayers $625 billion, the Cato Institute's Stephen Slivinski estimates. Such Giulianian fiscal discipline would generate a $386 billion surplus, not an anticipated $239 billion deficit.
Giuliani repeatedly privatized municipal assets. Giuliani sold WNYC radio for $20 million, WNYC-TV for $207 million, and Gotham’s share of the U.N. Plaza Hotel for $85 million. Divesting the New York Coliseum excised an eyesore from Columbus Circle and added $345 million to city coffers. Giuliani also let the private Central Park Conservancy manage Manhattan's fabled urban forest.
These eight years of tax reduction and fiscal responsibility helped hammer unemployment from 10.4 percent in 1993 to 5.7 percent in 2001. Simultaneously, personal income advanced 53 percent.
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1781994/posts
Hoover Institute, at which Reagan is an Honorary Member:
Since taking office Giuliani has cut the crime rate in half, the murder rate by 70 percent. True, the crime rate has fallen in other cities during the same period. But it has fallen further in New York, making the city, according to FBI statistics, the safest city of more than one million inhabitants in the country. Giuliani has enacted more than $2.3 billion in tax reductions, cutting the personal income tax, the commercial rent tax, the hotel occupancy tax, and the sales tax on clothing. Giuliani has reduced New York City’s welfare rolls by half a million, a number so big that if all the people the mayor has moved off welfare established a city of their own, it would be the twenty-seventh biggest in the nation. Since Giuliani took office, New York City has created 325,000 new jobs and seen its unemployment rate drop by almost half. If tangible accomplishments represent the measure of a politician, then Giuliani may be the most effective politician in the nation. Yet Giuliani himself is proudest of something that cannot be seen or quantified. It is the way New Yorkers think about their city.
http://www.hoover.org/publications/digest/3491481.html
Just as an aside, there is some gun legislation that Reagan signed too:
It was Governor Ronald Reagan of California who signed the Mulford Act in 1967, "prohibiting the carrying of firearms on one's person or in a vehicle, in any public place or on any public street." The law was aimed at stopping the Black Panthers, but affected all gun owners.
Twenty-four years later, Reagan was still pushing gun control. "I support the Brady Bill," he said in a March 28, 1991 speech, "and I urge the Congress to enact it without further delay."
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=3605
The import of some shotguns was prohibited by President Reagan?
The 1994 "assault weapons" ban will sunset in 2004 unless Congress re-authorizes it. All those firearms that were banned because of their appearance (and because they didn't meet arbitrary, bureaucratically defined, and highly changeable "sporting purpose" criteria) are scheduled to become legal to manufacture again. All those magazines that can hold more than 10 rounds will be legal to manufacture again. It will once again be legal to import the group of shotguns administratively banned by Ronald Reagan and the group of semi-automatic rifles similarly banned by the first President Bush. (Both of these executive bans were codified in the 1994 law.)
http://www.jpfo.org/alert20021007.htm
Since the KABA poll was released, additional information has resurfaced concerning President Reagan’s support for the 1994 “assault weapon” ban: “Kenneth J. Cooper & Ann Devroy, Backers of Assault Weapons Ban Make Final Push for Undecided Votes, WASH. POST, May 5, 1994, at A5. Former Presidents Gerald R. Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan announced their support of the ban in a letter.”
With this clear evidence of Mr. Reagan supporting the Brady Bill, a ban on shotguns and semiautos, and a ban on carrying firearms in public, it seems fair to ask:
Why is NRA republishing their 1983 resolution (issued, incidentally, 16 years after he signed the Mulford Act) where they proclaimed “President Reagan has forcefully stood by his convictions in support of the second amendment right of citizens to keep and bear arms for any legitimate purpose, including self-defense; and…vigorously rejects the myth that gun control is crime control…”?
http://keepandbeararms.com/newsarchives/XcNewsPlus.asp?cmd=view&articleid=2955
Explains the Mulford Act:
http://publicola.mu.nu/archives/2004/06/16/who_can_gun_owners_trust.html
You know, it's so strange that Newt Gingrich's Contract With America didn't mention one single word about abortion or gun control or gay marriage.
Now it's all you can talk about.
Ultra conservative Pat Robertson said that Rudy would make a good president. Sounds like a lot of folks on this forum are to the right of Robertson which is scary.
And in the Bible Belt, in South Carolina, Rudy is doing very well. If he can win here, he can win anywhere.
"The mayor was down here many times during the campaign," said Katon Dawson, chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party. "And I would say the mayor is very popular in South Carolina right now."
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1782943/posts
FIRST, require all laws that apply to the rest of the country also apply equally to the Congress;SECOND, select a major, independent auditing firm to conduct a comprehensive audit of Congress for waste, fraud or abuse;
THIRD, cut the number of House committees, and cut committee staff by one-third;
FOURTH, limit the terms of all committee chairs;
FIFTH, ban the casting of proxy votes in committee;
SIXTH, require committee meetings to be open to the public;
SEVENTH, require a three-fifths majority vote to pass a tax increase;
EIGHTH, guarantee an honest accounting of our Federal Budget by implementing zero base-line budgeting.
Thereafter, within the first 100 days of the 104th Congress, we shall bring to the House Floor the following bills, each to be given full and open debate, each to be given a clear and fair vote and each to be immediately available this day for public inspection and scrutiny.
THE FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY ACT
A balanced budget/tax limitation amendment and a legislative line-item veto to restore fiscal responsibility to an out-of-control Congress, requiring them to live under the same budget constraints as families and businesses.THE TAKING BACK OUR STREETS ACT
An anti-crime package including stronger truth-in-sentencing, "good faith" exclusionary rule exemptions, effective death penalty provisions, and cuts in social spending for this summer's "crime" bill to fund prison construction and additional law enforcement to keep people secure in their neighborhoods and kids safe in their schools.THE PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY ACT
Discourage illegitimacy and teen pregnancy by prohibiting welfare to minor mothers and denying increased AFDC for additional children while on welfare, cut spending for welfare programs, and enact a tough two-years-and-out provision with work requirements to promote individual responsibility.THE FAMILY REINFORCEMENT ACT
Child support enforcement, tax incentives for adoption, strengthening rights of parents in their children's education, stronger child pornography laws, and an elderly dependent care tax credit to reinforce the central role of families in American society.THE AMERICAN DREAM RESTORATION ACT
A $500 per child tax credit, begin repeal of the marriage tax penalty, and creation of American Dream Savings Accounts to provide middle class tax relief.THE NATIONAL SECURITY RESTORATION ACT
No U.S. troops under U.N. command and restoration of the essential parts of our national security funding to strengthen our national defense and maintain our credibility around the world.THE SENIOR CITIZENS FAIRNESS ACT
Raise the Social Security earnings limit, which currently forces seniors out of the work force, repeal the 1993 tax hikes on Social Security benefits and provide tax incentives for private long-term care insurance to let Older Americans keep more of what they have earned over the years.THE JOB CREATION AND WAGE ENHANCEMENT ACT
Small business incentives, capital gains cuts and indexation, neutral cost recovery, risk assessment/cost-benefit analysis, strengthening the Regulatory Flexibility Act and unfunded mandate reform to create jobs and raise worker wages.THE COMMON SENSE LEGAL REFORM ACT
"Loser pays" laws, reasonable limits on punitive damages and reform of product liability laws to stem the endless tide of litigation.THE CITIZEN LEGISLATURE ACT
A first-ever vote on term limits to replace career politicians with citizen legislators.
He also said the U.S. health care crisis must be solved by "preserving the private, competitive market-driven nature of health care."
This is one of the many reasons why I'm backing Giuliani. He's the only Republican candidate committed to reducing big government.
That is great.
Yup - just as I thought. Not a word in there about abortion or gun control.
Now I ask you, if those issues are such a huge segment of the GOP platform, why on earth didn't Newt include them in that Contract?
Thanks for posting that. Toodles.
Thank goodness he isn't for national healthcare! That would lose my vote in a heartbeat.
Thanks for posting that, Julie.
Will check in again in the a.m.
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To find I'm king of the hill, top of the heap