Posted on 09/25/2005 10:56:29 AM PDT by Uncle Joe Cannon
"But the faithful will not allow a word spoken against our leader. If a Democrat did these things, Limbaugh, Hannity, and the rest of the cheerleaders would be up in arms"
That's a really good point and a really good test to apply. So to anyone defending Bush's record: imagine John Kerry had won the last election and since then had done and said exactly the same as George Bush has - what would your opinion be now?
There isn't a spending bill that I can think of that became law without President Bush's signature.
Bush is certainly a social conservative, but he's a bigger fiscal liberal than LBJ. He believes that the answer to almost every problem is expansion of the federal government.
Are you suggesting that the Reagan Defense build-up was due to the spending of the Democratic Congress?
"Borrow and spend" is a completely different animal than "tax and spend".
Right--"Borrow and spend" means defer the tax to your children and grandchildren (or outsource American foreign policy to Peking).
Of course the 'Rats who have districts/states with large military bases and contractors are happy to spend everyone else's money in their districts.
That's a lovely piece of filth by the court.
Agreed. It's particularly painful when our side engages in verbal nonsense. Given that the Cold War has been over for 15 years, "socialist" and "communist" are losing their cultural framework, especially for the younger crowd. "Fiscal irresponsibility" is ideology-neutral, plus accurate. Unfortunately, we can't successfully pin this one on the dems (even though they are happily pulling in pork for their districts), when the repubs control both houses of congress and the WH.
"That means he thinks no further than getting elected and keeping his popularity reasonably high."
Constitution check: Presidents get two terms only.
Politics check: By exploding the budget, Bush is damaging his base. God knows he's not going to win over the libs.
"Possibly he has enough foresight to think of his cohorts future in government and certainly of his personal future economic security."
Sounds like you're making some pretty unsavory charges against our C in C.
i don't know just what the hell he is, I do know that he and these repubs are spending a hell of a lot of MY MONEY.
When the %$#@^& finally hits the fan people are going to look back and wonder why we traded so much away for so little.
I don't have kids or grandkids but if I did, I would wish for more from life for them than to be virtual sharecroppers buried under a mountain of debt to Red China.
Right. The President proposes, the Congress disposes, as the saying goes.
There is a subtlety about what Bush is doing that is missed by most. He and Rove decided early on, even when campaigning for the 2000 election, that the government has grown so big that it cannot be easily cut. The best that can be hoped for at this point is to redirect it.
Tax cuts were a start but to get them passed many compromises were made. Sunsetting them was the most important. That battle is on the horizon.
The education bill greatly increased spending but it also imposed accountability on the schools and teachers. It had a three year faze in and now that it is working the left is screaming.
The drugs for seniors program is expensive but it has the seeds for privatizing the whole thing. That could later l;ead to privatizing Medicare rather than a Hillary national healthcare plan.
He is working on SS and the tax system to make each more involved with free enterprise and the economy rather than government control.
The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were unavoidable. So is the cost. However, many functions are contracted out rather than done by the government. That is another step in the right direction.
All this new money for hurricane rebuilding is directed toward empowering people with jobs, job training, and is being put into the hands of independent companies who hire people, not government employees.
All conservatives are against big government and big spending but Bush is redirecting this for a better outcome in the long run. The liberals are being out foxed by Rove again.
The new Department of Homeland Security supposedly is not under the Civil Service Administration. That means more freedom in hiring, promoting, and firing people, a longtime problem with government. I hope it got through. If not, Bush tried.
In addition the tax cuts and improved economy keep bring more money into the treasury.
Correct, but the WH has two distict domestic functions concerning the budget: 1) It can propose a budget, and set the priorities and roadmap that the congress can follow. 2) It has the veto pen, the mere threat of which, in the hands of a capable leader, can affect the direction congress takes.
"Leadership" in a democracy isn't dictatorship, by design in the Constitution. It is, however, persuasion, guidance, negotiation, and above all, articulating a clear vision for those in congress to latch onto. Bush has a great opportunity here to shine.
Well said sir.
Socialism and communism are merely varying degrees of Marxism. While I don't like the massive amounts of spending that this administration is doing and I am adamantly opposed to his Medicare drug giveaway, I wouldn't label him a socialist. I would prefer "borrow and spend" to "tax and spend" because - like I said before - once the government puts a tax in place, it doesn't go away. Emotional appeals about burdening our children with debt is hyperbole.
Addressing the question, "Is Bush a Socialist?", from the Communist Manifesto, there is a list of ten things that should be put in place for a country to be considered communist and/or socialist. Do these questions look like the agenda of this administration or of the current Democratic party?
1.Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2.A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3.Abolition of all right of inheritance. (ie. Inheritance or Death Tax)
4.Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5.Centralisation of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6.Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7.Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8.Equal liability of all to labour. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9.Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equable distribution of the population over the country.
10.Free education for all children in public schools. (and only public schools. No school vouchers, no homeschool tax breaks, no school choice for parents).
Yep.
Gingrich and the Republican Congress probably deserve more respect for the deficit reductions of the 1990s than Sullivan gives them.
And if a Republican president has legitimised irresponsible spending, what chance is there that a Democrat will get tough?
It looks like the lesson is that if you want to get tough on deficits, elect a Republican Congress and a Democrat president. They won't give him what they'd give a Repubican president, and he won't get what his own Democrats would give him.
Across the street from where I grew up in nyc, on a storage facility building used by a church on the corner of Thompson & Prince, was quite a bit of graffiti.
One of the slogans was 'Au H2O.'
As a kid in the 70s I never 'got it,' until I leared about the legendary Mr. Godlwater in my young teens! :-)
gridlock! you're right i fear.
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