Posted on 01/16/2008 12:58:29 PM PST by jdm
LAURENS - Republican White House hopeful Fred Thompson said Wednesday that the United State's spending on programs like Medicare and welfare puts the country on a course for the same financial oblivion that brought down the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
"We're doing it in a different way," Thompson said during a radio interview in response to a question about President Ronald Reagan's strategy of outspending the Soviet Union and whether the U.S. was now on the same course. "The bottom line could be the same."
Recurring spending demands for programs that pay for health care, welfare and social security will take up the entire budget within 30 years, Thompson said.
"We're spending ourselves into oblivion," he said. "It cannot be sustained."
The pressure is on for the former Tennessee senator to do well in the first Southern contest for Republicans.
"Different people are winning these different major contests and I think a different person will win Saturday in South Carolina," said Thompson, who fizzled in earlier states. "No one has settled in on anyone."
Thompson's first question from a crowd of about 200 at a breakfast and burger restaurant came from a man who claimed the federal judicial system was corrupt, particularly because 40 cases he has filed have not been heard.
"I think you need a better lawyer," Thompson joked. The man told Thompson he couldn't afford one.
Thompson said he would get tough on illegal immigration by tightening the border and eliminating incentives for people who enter the nation unauthorized. His remarks were a swipe at Mike Huckabee who, as Arkansas governor, attempted to make children of illegal immigrants eligible for scholarships and in-state college tuition.
Sad but true. I am already apologizing to my kids.
I have several coworkers ( left-overs from the drug culture late 60’s - 70’s ) that astound me to the point I could go postal on them. They are just moronic in their rhetoric.
Vote for conservatives.
Coutdown until the first Fred hater shows up on this thread!
5...4...3...2...1
As the saying goes, “If you think health care is expensive now, just wait until its ‘free’.”
And greatly exacerbated by the massive bail-out of Mexican and Central America poverty which is the effect of our open borders de facto immigration policy.
Not only is the first generation of this massive influx of people adding little or nothing to the tax base (or rather receiving EITC) (and sending $70b a year out of the country), but the low rate of high school graduation in the second and third generation means they are not moving up the value-added ladder and becoming contributors to the tax base.
Trillions and trillions more piled onto the welfare state.
The questioner was a plant trying to get a comment from Thompson that could be used against him. Thompson did the right thing by deflecting it with humor because the man's question was devoid of any information on which Thompson could've based an answer. Plus, if the man can't find a lawyer who'll take his "cases" then he probably doesn't have much of a case.
“A democracy . . . can only exist until a majority of voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury.” -- Alexander Fraser Tytler
“Lets assume for the next 500 words or so that we’re in a recession. This is an odd moment in the global economy. In the past, a U.S. recession would have been really bad news for our trading partners. (When America sneezes, the world catches a cold.) This time around, it’s likely to be marginally bad news. A recession will take a bite out of China’s growth, but just a bite. Around the world, things are going gangbusters. In 2006, 104 countries grew at more than 5 percent, and most kept up that pace in 2007. None of the world’s other major economies (save perhaps Japan) is in imminent danger of shrinking.
The juxtaposition of a shrinking U.S. economy with a continuing global boom should function as a wake-up call. Yes, we matter. But we don’t matter nearly as much as we used to. Between 2000 and 2006, according to Goldman Sachs, America’s share of global GDP fell from 31 percent to 27.7 percent. Last year, with the pace of U.S. economic growth lagging that of the world, the slippage continued. In January 2001, the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ accounted for 48.4 percent of the globe’s stock market capitalization. In December 2007, by my calculation of data from the World Federation of Stock Exchanges, that proportion had fallen to 31.4 percent.
The world is running away from us. The volume of global trade in merchandise has been increasing rapidly. And it’s not just the United States importing goods from China. It’s China importing natural resources from everywhere and building infrastructure in sub-Saharan Africa, sub-Saharan Africa buying oil from the Persian Gulf, Dubai investors purchasing Indian real estate, Indian builders buying German engineering products and services, and German engineers buying toys made in China. With each passing day, an increasing number of transactions in the global marketplace do not involve the United States. We’re still a powerful engine. But the world’s economy now has a set of auxiliary motors.”
Come on SC!! Get it together for Fred! We need a united party!
You think you're bummed out - try being a Hunter supporter. lololol
I think it may have a lot to do with the media not giving giving Fred much coverage. And even when they do it's usually unfavorable, or at least infers that he has no chance to win so why waste your vote on him.
He and Hunter are the only two conservatives left in the race, the others are all out and out liberals, so the liberal media, including so-called "fair and balanced" Fox News BTW, is trying to keep Fred and Hunter out of sight and out of the minds of voters as much as possible.
Man oh man how I hate the US media. I don't hate the actual people who work in the media, because as a Christian I'm commanded not to hate wicked people even if they hate me and want to do me harm (Ro. 12:14 & 19). But I hate their anti-American bias, their liberalism, and the lies and deceit that they specialize in propagating.
I had a prof (a retired Army Col.) in a military strategy/foreign policy class back in 1980 who said something very, very similiar. As I recall, he said, "all this arguing over how many toilets all the poor people will get won't mean a damned thing if the Russkies bomb us or invade because we're too weak. Then those of us who are left are going to be crapping in the bushes, rich or poor."
BTW, this prof was one of my favorites. He was affectionately known as "A-bomb Atkinson" for his right-of-Ghengis Khan political views.
“You think you’re bummed out - try being a Hunter supporter. lololo”
I hear your pain. Thompson/Hunter is the best ticket IMHO.....
We need Fred as prez with Romney as vice prez. Thompson has the worldly wisdom and Romney has business knowhow.
I hear yours as well. :)
Well, since we all seem to be on a health-care is a 'basic human right' binge, I think that 'legal' care similarly ought to be a 'basic human right'....
I mean, how is anyone able to get justice in this great country if they cannot get a good lawyer?
“Thompson says spending puts U.S. on course to Soviet-like oblivion”
If so, I am emigrating LEGALLY to the Republic of Texas.
He is right.
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