Posted on 01/11/2004 7:45:22 PM PST by Tunehead54
If you think that a booming stock market and a quarter of strong growth make O'Neill wrong then I agree with you. However the economy is not creating enough jobs to keep up with a growing labor force, the debt, trade deficit, and falling dollar are bad enough to alarm the IMF which alarms me. The signs that we are heading for big trouble are there. It may turn out that O'Neill was entirely correct.
O'Neill's a fool. A backstabbing ungrateful fool who will likely have to go to somebody like George Soros to get his next job.
The way tax cuts resulted in increased revenues?
Tax cuts have grown the economy. The increased revenues are coming, with continued economic growth.
This is what happened in the 80s under Reagan.
Unless, of course, you believe the Democrat spin.
We do more than any other country to help Africa. And it's not in the Treas Sec's perview to worry about foreign aid - we're in a recession O'Neill.
The nicest thing that can be said about O'Neill is he was George Bush's worst pick!
What this means to me is that he was not in harmony philosophically with the people he worked for. He makes it sound as if they were at fault for being who they are.
The decision to cut taxes was not really meant as a stimulus, I believe, although it was sold that way. The Dems were gearing up for an enormous increase in spending, and the tax cut was an attempt to end run the issue. Its hard to sell the idea of limited government, it was easier to just cut taxes which would make it difficult to launch the programs they wanted to launch.
Its ironic, that Bush has let himself be dragged into some of those very programs since then, but certainly the size of the programs has been limited not by philosophy unfortunately, but by deficits.
O'Neill, who sat on the National Security Council, says the focus was on Saddam from the early days of the Administration
This is good news. It was humiliating to have this guy shooting at our pilots day after day, and funneling money to the suicide bombers, and contracting Chinese companies to build ever better air-defense systems, and buying weaponry under the table from the French. The Turks would arrest the occasional smuggler carrying nuclear material over the mountains. Iraqi efforts to buy nuclear material may be news at the New York Times but it was public information every where else.
France, Russia, Germany, and China had all signed commercial agreements with Iraq in contravention to the sanctions, which meant that he had effectively bought off several members of the Security Council. The sanctions were on their way out, you remember the drum beat about millions of dead children due to the sanctions? The drumbeat was directly related to the contracts signed which would not be effective until sanctions were lifted.
Our choice was either to continue an endless war that was an open wound, continuously poisoning our relations with the Arab world, stand by and watch him emerge from containment with EU, Russian, and Chinese help, which would leave him untouchable, or else end it. It pleases me that Bush came into office determined to end it, and to end the endless shadowboxing of the Clinton years.
The arguments about WMD were wasted arguments; the point was that Saddam had bought the Security Council and sanctions were on their way out. You can't really argue that before the Security Council, so we talked about WMD instead.
People like to show pictures of Rumsfeld and Cheney shaking hands with Saddam. It never occurs to them that these guys might actually know something about Saddam that didn't see print in the Times.
"In the 23 months I was there, I never saw anything that I would characterize as evidence of weapons of mass destruction,"
I'm not sure that falls within his job description.
The President was "clearly signing on to strong ideological positions that had not been fully thought through,"
Since O'Neill didn't agree with them, they must by definition by "not... fully thought through". Also, in O'Neill-speak, "ideological" means that O'Neill doesnt' agree. If he agreed, it would not be "ideological". O'Neill isn't ideological because he agrees with himself.
"The biggest difference between then and now... is that our group was mostly about evidence and analysis, and Karl (Rove), Dick (Cheney), Karen (Hughes) and the gang seemed to be mostly about politics. It's a huge distinction."
There is a reason why political people are in charge of policy. Democracy means that the policies that the technocrats design must still be sold to the public, which means that the people at large must be convinced. That is what the political process is about. A guy like O'Neill would be knowledgeable about financial matter, presumably, although clearly not in line philosophically with the Bush crowd. But he can't rule by decree. His policy has to be shaped so that it can be sold. Guys like Rove and the others are political animals, and it is their business to shape policies so that they can be presented persuasively. If the people can't be convinced, in a democracy, then you can't get any of your program through. You need guys like O'Neill and Rove, both.
Job growth has already begun. The most recent month was only a hiccup. I could offer as anecdotal evidence that my son-in-law got three attractive job offers right after Xmas -- meaning employers are truly desperate.
Seriously, jobs are the last to come in any recovery. I'm not worried about that.
So far as the deficit is concerned... Have you heard that the deficit for the current fiscal year now projects at half the original estimate? Tax revenue is growing sharply as the economy recovers -- exactly as it is supposed to work.
Have faith in the American economy, for heaven's sake. It's on the move!
Exactly.
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