Ok, so remember to provide cites. That said...

We, the people, want food inspection rules so lax that we can't tell if we're dying from a terror attack or if it's the usual corporate manslaughter.

We want the president to lie about the costs of diverting Social Security taxes to Wall Street; we want it all paid for by larger tax increases on the poor and middle income tax payers in a few years, rather than smaller ones on the wealthy now (which is the intentional effect of borrowing the money); and we freely accept the assertion Wall Street won't make massive profits off of this, at our expense, because Wall Street tells us so.

We also want Federal budget rules changed to hide the additional Federal deficit that diverting hundreds of billions of dollars will cause; even though we know the only ones stupid enough to be fooled will be us, not the lenders who will be asked to underwrite all of this. Happily, we like inflation, and high interest rates. We must, right?

And of course, we don't give a crap about the safety of US troops in the Middle East; just like everyone in the White House. After all, they've been behaving like this for a couple of years now, and we just rewarded them for it; so it must be an accurate reflection of our views.


Happy the electorate that's got the government they deserve.

That was interesting...anyway.

Beefotronix; as far as policy alternatives, I'd say anything else. However, on a more practical level its a matter of staying in the face of your congresscritter and senators for at least the next two years; otherwise they (at Republican behest) will do very nasty things to your economic future (and that of the US as a whole). That's whether they're Democratic or Republican types, btw; both have to be threatened with the loss of votes, and with monetary support for their opponents, if they go along with this economic program.

And now for something slightly different; the Dollar. earlier this week, the dollar was weakening ahead of the release of the October current account (balance of trade) numbers. Then those numbers came out; and they were pretty bad. The deficit rose 9% in one month, pushing the ten month trade deficit over half a trillion dollars; which breaks the previous annual record. Yup; for the next two months, we're charting new territory. The dollar didn't rise on the news.

Then Dubya shot off his mouth. Besides telling some obvious lies about intending to reduce the Federal deficit; he offered a perscription for lowering that naughty current account red ink:

And the dollar...let's not always see the same hands...that's right, it dropped. Brother, can you spare a Euro?

I might respect the ones who don't lie about his failings; and who can provide a decent explanation for why reason X is worth all the damage that he is certain to do to the US economy and society; but they tend to be very thin on the ground. It's hard to respect the ignorant, the foolish, or the selfish; and only they could think that Bush was a *good* choice. Less bad than Kerry, maybe (though I'd love to hear how); good, never.

In passing, I've discussed why they intended to vote for Bush with about a dozen people. Half of them were wrong about his policies (I suspect they switched to Kerry eventually), all but one of the rest had really bad reasons (they didn't like Teresa Kerry, thought Bush's `likability' was all that mattered, stood to profit personally from his looting of the US, want to keep down the blacks, or would vote for Satan on the GOP line). The one respectable Bush voter, out of that dozen, was a single issue anti-abortion voter; who's reasoning I did not agree with, but could at least respect as honest and well thought out.

There are Bush voters out there with solid good reasoning, you just wouldnt like those reasons, and for many they include gay marriage, support of his tax policies, his take it alone approach in foreign affairs

. I on the hand voted for Bush for several reasons: 1st) His stance on abortion, 2nd)No Child Left Behind - a great act, puts real accountabilty on teachers, yes it is a little underfunded, but that is because it didnt meet maximumm spending, the key is the accountability not the money 3rd) Kerry's plans unless he lied or was going to cut back programs would do more damage to deficit 4th) I think he is a strong leader who may not have all the values I have, but he doesnt say only what people want them to hear, while flip-flopping is common, Kerry never spoke of any real plan just rhetoric, and even that changed. 5th) I think Social Security needs some privitization, I dont think Bush's plan is great, but it is in the right direction.
There are others to add to that and I did have negatievs on Kerry too, but they far outweighed by Kerry's negatives and Bush's postitives,

I know plenty others who others who have good reason. Now when you start off with your premise why is reason X worth all the damage he is certain to cause to the economy and society, well yeah there are no good reasons. But I would argue that your premise is biased and incorrect, and others could just as easily say why is reason Y worth all the damage Kerry would cause.

This is one of those places where the thread rules come up. You have to cite all of this. Cite Dubya's honest position on abortion, and establish that it's a net positive; prove that No Child Left Behind isn't a bad law (and you have to do it from the results); prove that Kerry would have driven up the deficit (his policy positions were all on his website; go start researching); prove that Bush is a strong leader and not a politically expedient flip flopper (start with rationalizing away the 9/11 Commission and the Department of Homeland Security); and come up with a societal benefit from a Social Security privatization plan that can be documented (both the plan and the benefit). Extra credit for documenting what Social Security really is, as opposed to what the far right claims it is.


You could; but you would have to prove it. I've spent the last half dozen of these threads documenting that Bush is probably the worst president we've ever had societally and economically; and that the damage I described is an inevitable result of his policies and those of his party. You need a lot more than an ad hominum assertion that I'm wrong; at least, in this particular thread.

Oh, and regarding the `good solid' reason of supporting his unilateralist foreign policy approach; go look at those articles about the dollar. The dollar which Bush and the GOP trashed, and now refuse to support. When the copies of the old threads show up, go follow the links to the discussion about what happened when China *hinted* that they'd *slow down* buying dollars. Now contemplate that there are more than a dozen nations out there, all sitting on enough of our paper to plunge us into an economic depression; by simply deciding that they've lost enough on the falling dollar, and dumping it on the market (China, Japan, various oil producing states, and various Eurozone states can do this). Then explain to me how we can survive as a prosperous power, when Dubya's gratuitously stepping on the toes attached to the butts we need to be kissing.

As for the tax policies; this is the Bureau of Labor Statistics site. Go look up what happened to the median income here in the US under Dubya. You'll find that it fell; and that's before adjustment for inflation. But don't take my word for it; go ask the Government.

Bush is an abject moron. Even if you are planning something like this as a contingency, you don't announce it like this. Really, how would we feel if France sent us a note that said "Should your sattelites be used in a way that hurts us, with or without your knowledge, we won't hesitate to blow them up."

I'd be happy to do so once my finals are over in a few days, in which I will have time to look things up. Yes you have said alot, and if I would have had the time I would have argued, but unfortunately I never had time to oppose you. The problem is finding legitimate sources that aren't biased one way or another. I saw alot of the sites you quote, and I wouldnt trust them for anything.

Also I was not making an ad hominem assertion you wer wrong. I was syaing you wrong that people supporting BUsh did not have good reasons. I gave you my reasons based on sound research and news I have seen. I dont keep these sources nor did I post them when I found them, but they influenced my decision and showed me things. I watched the debates, went through almost every ad (ad-watch paper) and looked at both their websites. I will try an dback up my stuff, but I was only giving your reasons, its just you dont like them.

And isnt abortion a banned topic?

I think the President should scale back the tax cuts, but for everyone, not just the top 2%, as I go more on the lines of being fiscally conservative. But his taxes are not resposible for the median income going down. We hit a recession and for mutiple reasons. First, I dont think the president has that big an impact on the economy. Second, the economy that overgrew during Clinton (Not blaming him in the slightest) fell apart. The stock market was already slipping, oil prices went up (as a result of China's demand), the .coms began to crumble, coroporate scandal, and throw in spetember 11th.


And Tabasco I see nothing wrong with this. The US said that if China was using these satelites agaisnt us in a war, we would first try to block them, if we couldnt we would blow them up. This was after the EU said they would not shut them down even if China was using them against us. When they say they would not shut them down, and we cant block them, we should shoot them down, and we should tell them we would.

Me...I think Kerry talks in abstract principles without any real plan to follow them through, and I distinctly felt like I was being told what I wanted to hear.

His health care plan for instance. Unbiased third parties analyzed his health care plan and revealed that he had severely underestimated the cost. This would have resulted in massive tax increases -- and it's perfectly reasonable for people not to want to pay them.

He insisted he was going to 'save Social Security'. The thing is, the baby boomers are right around the corner from hitting 65, so he'd either have to roll back social security, or increase social security taxes.

And, I hate to admit it, but Bush did have one point about the war. War is a dirty business. Kerry is right that you shouldn't enter it lightly. But if you're going to wage war, you need to be either fully committed to the war, or not enter the war at all. War is, in a way, all or nothing. You can't be ambiguously at war. Either you're at war, or you're not. And Kerry's ambiguous message made people think he was a weak leader.

I like Kerry a whole lot more than Bush, but he isn't exactly the ideal candidate. If he was running against a respectable republican like McCain, I'd strongly consider voting republican.

You know, by my own warped logic, I considered that a good thing. If a politician is so bad at lying that you can tell when he's doing it, then when he's off the campaign trail, he's probably a fairly honest guy. When Kerry was talking bull, he sounded like he was talking bull. When Bush was talking bull, he sounded like he actually meant it. If you knew the real facts, he sounded completely delusional. If you didn't know the facts (which most people don't), he sounded completely honest.

Bush's tax cuts put a bigger hole in the budget than Kerry's proposed health plan. If Bush succeeds in making his tax cuts permanent, he would decrease government revenues by between 2 and 3 trillion dollars over the next decade. In contrast, according to Bush's numbers, Kerry's health plan would cost $900 billion over 10 years. Kerry wouldn't have had to raise taxes to pay for it, he'd just have to stop cutting them. And of course he wouldn't have cut the deficit in half (Bush claimed he'd do the same thing), but at least he wouldn't have put a 3 trillion dollar hole in it. But no politician would ever dare say that he intends to tax you more than the other guy. Hence the bull.

As for the social security problem, it wasn't even that bad to begin with. Social security was going to have enough money to pay full benefits for the next 30 years, and then it would have enough money for about 80%. It wasn't in danger of going flat broke. A modest tranfusion of money from elsewhere in the budget would've been sufficient to keep it going, completely unchanged, for decades to come.

Privatizing social security will make a medium-sized problem an enormous problem. One the government hopes to solve by effectively taking a huge gamble on the stock market.

It's also not very comforting to know that Argentina tried exactly the same thing back in the 90s.

EDIT: added more links

From what I have read there are serious problems with social security and that it woudl fall apart, but if itsn't that that would be a welcome change.

So Kerry's plan to only reduce taxes on the top 1-2% and eliminating tax cuts on companies that move jobs overseas (most economists agree that there wouldnt be much money here) but lower overal coroprate taxes. Increasing spending in health care, education, and other areas (This is what I remember his plan as, dont have time to look it up yet. I dont think this would solve the entire deficit that people are saying Bush will create. Plus that is saying that we wont get a boom in the economy allowing extra tax revenue to come in, but I would agree that you cant bet on that. Do Kerry's extra expenduture promises outweigh pulling back the tax cuts on the top 1-2%, and money from removing tax breaks for companies moving jobs overseas and lowering coroporate taxes. I know I have seen the numbers but I cant quote because I would have to look it up.

(Just want to make sure that I am not pissing off eveyrone, that I am just trying to have a good debate and I am not tyring to say anything in a mean spirited way. Though I sometimes finding myself going more to the right and defending stuff I dont agree with because I am the only one defending it)

You're still not providing citations, though. The reason that you don't see other people arguing the right against Were in threads like this is that it's hard to find factual citations that support Bush's policies.

Take ten minutes and try to find an actual in-depth article that supports any of Bush's plans whole heartedly that is actually based on hard numbers and facts and isn't just parroting talking points.

Bush's support is very visceral, his supporters FEEL he is right. But that doesn't mean that his policies are working well.

What is Bush doing that actually works? Which of his policies is working well?

The budget surplus of the nineties has dried up and become a huge deficit, which is what is destroying social security. Blame Clinton all you want, we are now entering year 5, and the deficits are getting larger, and the economy has only improved marginally.

In fact, Social Security saw a huge increase passed in 1983 that would have maintained it's solvency well into the middle of this century, efectively saving Social Security. This current "crisis" only arose because Reagan and other presidents cut income taxes and looted social security. This was a way of hiding the actual size of the gigantic deficits Reagan and later W love so much, and also a way to get the workers to pay more of the taxes while giving hefty tax cuts to the lazy wealthy, effectively giving the US a more regressive tax system while hiding the truth behind these tax cuts. This perpetual reverse class warfare has been waged on the sly since the eighties, but has accelerated since W was selected.

Citation

The GOP doesn't want to save Social Security they want to destroy it and all entitlement programs. Which is why the surpluses of Clinton evaporated like a fart in a wind storm. Deficits are loans taken against the future solvency of the US. If they get large enough, by way of tax cuts and spending, simply paying the interest will force the government to dismantle most of its social programs just to stay solvent.

As for Kerry: we'll never know if the deficits would have been smaller under him, because he didn't win. But considering they are at record levels under W, we can only assume it would have been difficult for him to do worse.

Oh no, I fully expected Kerry to do a mixture of raising taxes and scaling back his programs. He had to be talking bull, but at least it was predictable marketing bull. Bush on the other hand, seemed to behave as if the deficit did not even exist. The only thing he proposed to curtail it was "to make sure Congress doesn't spend too much." Never mind that he, not Congress, was the chief architect behind the largest hits to the budget in the last 4 years. Never mind that he said it in the same breath as proposing yet more tax cutting and spending. And never mind that he didn't ever bother to veto a single spending bill, not even ones that were blatant corporate giveaways. (There is even one that somehow gives a whole lot of extra money to corporations that happen to be oil companies from Texas).

If Kerry was proposing to tax and spend, Bush was proposing to spend and spend some more.

I dont have citations because alot of my information comes from books and I didnt start looking yet for citations. Get in the Booth by Larry Sabato is one I have now for my class.
[/quote]

I dont blame Clinton, he did a good job not raising spending to get a surplus, but I think alot of is realted to the buisness cycle, which in general I dont think have a huge impact on the economy, as most economists agree. And he just like BUsh has used social security to help balance the budget.
One example
Two examples


Ok too much rheotoric for you. Tax cuts were applied equally, percentage wise of course, in dollar terms of course it was more for the wealthy because they pay more. Now we could argue about that but that isnt the point. The system has not gotten more regressive if it is a tax cut across the board. That is from Sabato if you want a internet link just ask. Plus there was the creation of the 10% bracket, that doesnt seem regressive to me.
Tax Cuts reduced taxes for everyone]
Yes the tax burden was slightly reduced for the top 20% and for the bottom 20%, it wa sa slight increase to the to the middle 40% in terms of percentage of tax burden, in actual dollars it went down for everyone.


Actually, presidents since Reagen including Reagen have tapped into social security, in fact that was one reason Bill Clinton balanced the budget, I will have these quotes by sunday when my last final is over, I learned this class and had the article, but I need to find it. This is a hige problem for everyone, and this is what sparked the lockbox debate back in 2000 between Gore and Bush, because it was happening under Clinton, granted the Congress, which is Republican, was probably part of it



Kerry tried to make people think Bush had plans to cut social security
[quote = "Big-O"]

As for Kerry: we'll never know if the deficits would have been smaller under him, because he didn't win. But considering they are at record levels under W, we can only assume it would have been difficult for him to do worse. [/quote]

Yes assumptions, I suggest you look at his website, he says he will balance the budget yet everywhere he speaks that Bush isn't spending enough and that all of this well come from the top 2% and elmininating tax cuts for moving jobs overseas, that is just not realistic.

I found stuff but the problem is the link, you would have to buy the article or have access to something like Lexis Nexis like I do. I can show you the preview of the article, but the text is archived.
Kerry's Plan was just as bad as BUsh's for the deficit
Here is another
Problem with Kerry's Rhetoric
And another:
More evidence that Kerry would not help the deficit

Here is some stuff on the weak dollar saying how it can be a good hting and how some good things have come as a result, th eonly problem is if the dollar gets any weaker:
Current Account Deficits Widened this Quater
Dropping U.S. Dollar - Medicine or Poison?


And Bush didnt recogonize there was a deficit, here is some proof, although I woud love to show you the stuff from Bush's website which did acknowledge the problem but it was taken down. Here is something though:
Bush has plan and acknowledges it
Whether he does it, is a different story.

Wait a sec, according to your source, the wealthiest got a bigger cut, percentage wise, than everyone else. The wealthiest 1% saw a 6.8% cut in their tax rate, while the middle 20% had their tax rate cut by 1.9%.

As with all things about taxes, it's a messy picture. Yes, all groups saw their taxes go down, but the wealthiest got the biggest discount, percentage wise too. The tax system is still 'progressive', but less than it was before. How bad this is depends on your preexisting biases about how much the wealthy owe the rest of society. But I'll say this: considering that the wealthiest 1% pay 20% of all federal taxes, giving them a 6.8% tax cut constitutes a pretty gigantic loss in revenue, and that's not something you really want to do in wartime.

While Big O was a bit over-the-top with his "lazy rich people" bit, he was referring to the most important parts of Bush's tax reforms - the elimination of the estate tax and the capital gains tax. Two taxes that affect primarily the very wealthy, and two taxes on income derived not by working. Bush's rhetoric about helping "hardworking Americans" amounts to a lot of hogwash. It's like selling the afterthought as the main point.

Kerry's mistake was in trying to be everything to all people - in the end, everyone knew that it was impossible. TCO, you're right when you say that his rhetoric was unconvincing. However, I believed that he would've appointed sane advisors with a less Enron-ish approach to accounting. Plus, I'd rather money be spent on healthcare than tax cuts for the wealthy, but that's just my bias.

Bush's rhetoric (besides trying to sound populist when he really wasn't) was aimed at disguising the irresponsibility of his own economic agenda. He called Kerry "Liberal" a lot. He placed the blame for the deficit on everything but his own policies. His behaviour over the last 4 years made it pretty clear that raising taxes to reduce the budget deficit was the last thing he would ever do. But he gave absolutely no indication of how he was going to fund his enormously expensive and risky social security privatization. (We know now. He's going to borrow.)

And while Kerry engaged in fearmongering by accusing Bush of planning to cut social security benefits, he wasn't completely wrong. His distortion was that he was trying to scare today's elderly, instead of today's middle-aged. Cutting benefits would be the inevitable result of privatization. Allowing younger workers to divert money from the fund would mean that in 30 years, there won't be enough money to pay full benefits to the baby boomers. If you do not raise taxes, you have to cut benefits.

The Washington Post has a pretty good article on the cost of privatization - and believe it or not, it is fair. To make a long story short - the White House's numbers look good in theory, but they quite likely won't work in practice. Their numbers assume that nothing goes wrong, nobody changes anything, financial markets trust them, and there aren't any more stock market crashes. For the next 30 or 40 years.

Edited several times for clarity. Sigh.

The whole point of these points was nto to prove that BUsh's policies are great, it was to prove that although I do not approve of everything Bush has done I had good reasons to vote for him over Kerry, I would have love dto vote for someone different, like McCain or Guliani, or Liebermen, and possibly others. I was going against the notion that Bush voters had no good reasons, people just dont like the reasons.

Yes it looks like the tax cut was weighted a little towards the rich, mor eif you look at percentage cut, less if you look at change in the tax burden. I didnt vote for Kerry because he stood for everything, which means you stand for nothing, I didnt know which promises he wouldfuflill and which he woudl reneg on and there were several thigns i liked about Bush.