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Flame war. |
Posted on 08/04/2002 8:30:36 PM PDT by Uncle Bill
How Conservative Is President Bush?
The Cato Institute
By Veronique de Rugy
August 3, 2002
Source
Veronique de Rugy is a fiscal policy analyst at the Cato Institute.
President Bush may be repeating the sins of his father. Although elected on a Reaganesque, tax-cutting platform, the White House has veered to the left. President Bush has signed a bill to regulate political speech, issued protectionist taxes on imported steel and lumber, backed big-spending education and farm bills, and endorsed massive new entitlements for mental health care and prescription drugs. When the numbers are added up, in fact, it looks like President Bush is less conservative than President Clinton.
It makes little sense to discourage one's core supporters prior to a mid-term election. Yet that is the result when a Republican president expands government, which Bush is doing. Also, academic research on voting patterns shows that a president is most likely to get re-elected if voters are enjoying an increase in disposable income. Yet making government bigger is not a recipe for economic growth. After all, there is a reason why Hong Kong grows so fast and France is an economic basket case. But you can't tell that to the Bush administration.
Administration officials privately admit that much of the legislation moving through Congress represents bad public policy. Yet they argue either that everything must take a back seat to the war on terror (much as the first Bush administration treated the war against Iraq) or that compromises are necessary to neutralize issues such as education. But motives and rationalizations do not repeal the laws of economics.
In less than two years, President Bush has presided over more government expansion than took place during eight years of Bill Clinton. For instance:
The education bill expands federal involvement in education. The administration originally argued that the new spending was a necessary price to get vouchers and other reforms. Yet the final bill boosted spending and was stripped of almost all reform initiatives. And there is every reason to believe that this new spending will be counter-productive, like most other federal money spent on education in the past 40 years. Children and taxpayers are the big losers.
Those policy decisions make government bigger and more expensive. They also slow the economy and hurt financial markets -- read the headlines lately? For all his flaws, President Clinton's major policy mistake was the 1993 tax increase. Other changes, such as the welfare reform bill, NAFTA, GATT, farm deregulation, telecommunications deregulation, and financial services deregulation, moved policy in a market-oriented direction.
Perhaps most importantly, there was a substantial reduction in federal spending as a share of gross domestic product during the Clinton years. Using the growth of domestic spending as a benchmark, Clinton was the second most conservative president of the post-World War II era, trailing only Ronald Reagan.
To be sure, much of the credit for Clinton's good policy probably belongs to the Republican Congress, but that is not an excuse for bad policy today. And on one positive note, President Bush has "promised" to fight for partial privatization of Social Security. Yet, so far, President Bush has not vetoed a single piece of legislation. Needless to say, this means it will be rather difficult to blame "big-spending" Democrats if the economy continues to sputter.
Compassionate Conservatism Means Big Government
No To 'Compassionate Conservatism'
"Marvin Olasky, the former Marxist journalism professor who coined the term. But he and George W. Bush are barking up the wrong tree if they think "compassionate conservatism" is going to rally popular support necessary to effect the real change needed to turn this country around."
President Highlights Compassionate Conservative Agenda for Inner Cities
If You Want Increasing Huge Government, Vote Bush
BUSH SPENDING BILL LARGEST EVER
U.S. quietly OKs fetal stem cell work - Bush allows funding despite federal limits on embryo use
Bush Signs Largest Family Planning Bill In U.S. History
Un El día En El la vida de Jorge W. La arbusto
CFR - "I Believe In Free Speech"
Bush Urges Congress To Deliver on Prescription Drugs For Medicare
GOP Medicare Prescription Drug Plan Advances in House - Another Trillion Dollars
Bush and House Republicans Push Legislation For Full Drug Subsidies For Low-Income Elderly
Bush Prepares 'Big-Time' Response To African Famine
Government Spending - War Against The Stock Market
Bush signs debt-limit increase
Bush Pushes Minority Homeownership
Bush's Food Stamp Plan Called Ethnic Pandering
Bush Wants Food Stamps For Non-Citizens
Senate Clears Way For Trade Bill - More Spending
BUSH AND THE BIG GOVERNMENT GOP
Security Bill Loaded With Wasteful PORK
Senate Ok's $31.5 Billion Anti-Terror Bill Loaded With Pork
George W. Bush and Gun Control
Bush Pushes Gore Plan For Orwellian Government
Bush Backs Down From Immunity Demand - Caves Again
BUSH, G7 to pay $20 billion to get rid of Russian nuke stockpiles
George W. Bush - The Global Warming Sell-Out
Dubya's New Deal - The New FDR
Bush Won't Label Arafat A Terrorist
George W. Bush's Terrorist Buddy
"When peoplelose faith in their institutions they trust to enforce the law, justice is no longer possible."
Bush Caves On Airport Screeners
Bush's Latest Srategic Mistake
BUSH: NINE FORMER PRESIDENTS WRONG; CLINTON RIGHT!
CRISIS? WHAT CRISIS? GEORGE BUSH'S NEVER-ENDING DOMESTIC BUDGET BUILD-UP - Father Like Son
Bush Appoints Four More Homosexuals
Dr. James Dobson Criticizes Bush Appointment to the CDC
Bush Pushes $500 Million HIV/Aids Funding For Africa
Bush to Propose Another $100 Million Over Five Years for Education in Africa
Are You Fat? No Problem, George W. Bush Will Help
House Conservatives Budge on Arts Spending
Bush Cheers Government Support For Art
Bush to Name Justice Dept. BUILDING After Kennedy
GOP Leaders Spurn Right in Key Races
Laura Ingraham's analysis of yet another Bush betrayal
Bush decisions rankle conservatives
BUSH PROPOSES LARGEST EXPANSION OF GOVERNMENT SINCE TRUMAN
Bush's Record Calls into Question His Conservative Label
Conservatives Question Dubya's Direction
Conservatives not satisfied with Bush's record
Bush, Ashcroft Run Roughshod Over Bill Of Rights, Study Says
Republicans: Big Government Addicts
A Few Questions For Die-Hard Bush Supporters
Are Republicans losing their constituency?
Ann Coulter: BUSH PAYS HOMAGE TO THE FETISHISTIC RITUALS OF LIBERALISM
Compassionate conservatism is about socialism, not Americanism
Bush is jettisoning his principles for what?
Bush: stop the runaway federal spending and regulating!
Was Clinton More Conservative Than Bush? - Fox News
Bush: A Democrat in Republican clothing?
GEORGE W. BUSH: CLINTON'S THIRD TERM ©
"Another way to make sure that we foster growth and restore confidence is to hold people accountable for misdeeds in the public sector."
George W. Bush - University of Alabama at Birmingham Alys Stephens Center - July 15, 2002.
NOTE: Do As I Say, Not As I Do.
Bush Administration Lawyers Defending Hillary - Gratis
Bush and Ashcroft Justice Dept. Hamstringing Pardongate Probers.
Bill Clinton broke the law and the Republicans let him off the hook.
What we need is the tough Newt Gingrich back.
"As far back as April 7, 1998, then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich was asked on NBC’s Today if he were going to press for impeachment. His response: "No, we don’t have any evidence."
Source.
Al Gore Broke The Law and the Republicans let him off the hook.
Bush Says He Wants to Let Clinton 'Move On'
"Listen, here's my view: I think it's time to get all of this business behind us. I think it's time ... to allow the president to finish his term, and let him move on and enjoy life and become an active participant in the American system. And I think we've had enough focus on the past. It's time to move forward." - George W. Bush.
Bush Won't Dwell On Clinton Affair, "We're Moving Forward"
"B/S, Mr Bush. Clinton is a criminal and a traitor. We demand a thorough investigation and prosecution. Our Republic is dead and our liberty is at stake if the next administration does not clean up this mess for now and forever more. Corrupt politicians must pay the price for subverting our Constitution and using their offices for personal gain."
4 Posted on 01/20/2000 14:17:56 PST by Jim Robinson
A Republic If We Can Keep It - Bush Trashing The Constitution
It's About The Republic, Not The Republican
How Big Is The Government's Debt? - $33.1 TRILLION
There Must Be Some Way Out Of Here
"Not over my dead body will they raise your taxes,"
George W. Bush - SOURCE.
That is because you were sober.
Far right? Whos asking for far right...I'd settle for RIGHT period!
Define that.
I hope you have a nice pair of hip-waders. It's deep in here, as those of us who watched the whole thing go down know.
Actually, I understood you - I was just using your statement to highlight my point. I don't know what the AM saw, but we saw the whole thing, and I think it's our responsiblity to make sure the truth isn't distorted by individuals whose primary goal and purpose for being here seems to be protecting the offender and spreading a benign version of the story. Thanks to you, that's happening.
That bad huh??
I did enter into an argument with you where you made certain claims that I asked you to substantiate...you never did, and instead left the discussion.
Posted by Twodees to Luis Gonzalez
On News/Activism
"The Klan is blamed on Southerners for good reason.
Nope, there's no connection wahtsoever between the modern day KKK and the paramilitary organizations of the military occupation the South which were all referred to as klan by the press. The modern KKK was formed by northerners and became a national organization based in the north in the early 20th century. Indiana, Michigan and Illinois are still big KKK strongholds. There's more KKK activity up there than in the South. Naturally, you prefer the liberal media's version of the "truth". At least you remain true to form.
Posted by Twodeesto Luis Gonzalez Aug 1 1:53 PM
"They go by the same name today as they did then, by the same name, they dress the same way, they hold the same principles, and they the promote the same ideals."
No, Mr. newcomer to these shores, there were a lot of different names which the newspapers and magazines of the time referred to as the klan no matter what the actual name was, the had an entirely different aim then than they do today, the uniforms were invented for the new national organization formed by yankees, because the old paramilitary organization used nothing but bedsheets and flour sack masks.
Posted by Twodees to Luis Gonzalez
Sure, Lulu. I'm a "defender of the klan" and you're a "conservative". As usual, you forget what the argument is about and wander off grabbing up off subject BS to make a point that doesn't even relate to what I said.
Today's klan has no connection with the original resistance groups of 1866-67. None. Period. Also, most of the activity of today's klan is in northern states. The KKK was dead until it was revived by yankees in the midwest. Today's klan is part of that organization, not part of the short lived, now disbanded organizations of the years immediately following the war. Refute that if you can. Naturally, you're far more likely spend hours refuting something I didn't say in this response than to refute what I asked you to refute, but if it keeps you occupied, then I've done my part.
Imbecile.
Posted by Luis Gonzalez to Twodees Aug 1 9:00 PM "The original klan was disbanded by its leader, Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest in the 1860s. The yankee revival of a media created myth about the reconstruction era klan took place in the early 20th century."
"Around the time of World War Iqv a new Ku Klux Klan, patterned after the original one, made its appearance. The resurgent group began in Georgia, where William J. Simmons dedicated it at a cross-burning on Stone Mountain on Thanksgiving eve, 1915. The success of D. W. Griffith's epic film of the same year, Birth of a Nation, based on Thomas Dixon's novel The Clansman (1905), with its vivid portrayals of Radical Republican excesses, had helped to fan the flames of racial animosity, which had smoldered since Reconstruction. Also fueling the fire was a growing American nativist movement with its concomitant distrust of Catholics, Jews, African Americans,qv and other "foreign" elements. At first the new Klan grew slowly, but in the aftermath of World War I, the organization spread rapidly, not only in the South and Southwest, but also through the Midwest and to both coasts. At its height in the early 1920s the new Klan boasted some two million members. As before, its members or those posing as Klansmen perpetrated acts of violence, and although atrocities were committed across the nation, they were generally concentrated in the South. Some Texans were receptive to the Klan's angry and insular message, and by the early 1920s membership in the state organization numbered in the tens of thousands. Hooded legions paraded in Texas cities and towns, and cross-burnings, intended to show the power of the "invisible empire," became all too common."
http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/KK/vek2.html
Posted by Luis Gonzalezto Twodees
Aug 3 0:34 AM
Imbecile?
Tell you what, why don't we try something really novel, and YOU substantiate one damned thing that you claim.
Liar, spinner, and Klan apologist that you are, I am sure that you won't.
As I said, you can't substantiate a single thing you claim....
I hope you know what I meant by that. It's late. :)
Thanks to you and others like you, the truth isn't going to be buried by those determined to spin this into something it was not.
Yeah I "remember" threads all the time and when I log on. I can't find any of them. I remember when a cartoon of a maid followed Howlin from thread to thread with much "good natured" laughter. I remember a cartoon of Bush with a heavily "powdered" nose and that was all in good fun. Yeah but heaven forbid that is called "baiting". That is just satire.
Credibility? According to you I'm a liar anyway, though you don't know me. I'm not carrying water for anybody. I'm just tired of seeing everyone but one little clique of liberals hounded off of this forum. I'll tell you, though, Uncle Bill has worked hard gathering articles on government corruption. It's sickening to see his work attacked and belittled by people who don't give a tin plated crap about anything but party politics.
I'm not a long time participant here, but I used to surf in and read articles a few years ago, when conservatives who cared about exposing government corruption would respond to threads like this one with real interest. Now, what you get is texasforever answering that Reagan wasn't a conmservative so Bush doesn't have to be and blablabla and Howling calling in reinforcements to make fun of Uncle Bill for caring about corruption no matter who is in charge.
That's what ticked me off. You think we need to shut up about government growth and intrusion because there's a republican in office? If so, just change the name of the forum to Republican Underground. If ya'll want this to be an amen corner for the cult of celebrity created by the media for politicians, you'll have to put up with some criticism until you get all of us old conservative rowdies rounded up and shipped off.
You are a boor.
in case you need to look that up
Well, thankfully, there are many others who are willing to risk their status to stand up for the truth. I'm just one of several, and probably the least articulate of all of them. Thank you for the encouraging post.
Not really. There is no regulation, or rule that dictates that he argue his position with every poster. Others do the same. No big deal to me.....
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