World Events
Topic: Bush sucks; worst president in history...

#	Author	Message
271	DAR Tue 5/27/2008 9:29a	<<This nonsense that the GOP is in favor of "smaller" government is a lie. The truth is neither party is interested in smaller government, and they're not really all that concerned about deficit spending.>> Thank you Toony.
272	DouglasDubh Tue 5/27/2008 7:46p	<The Democrats didn't have nearly the majority to override a veto in the house, and didn't even regain the majority in the senate till 1987. Yet he still submitted budgets based on what those brutes in Congress wanted?> Yes. What good would a veto do when Congress puts an omnibus spending bill on your desk after the deadline has passed? The truth is that even though President Reagan's budgets increased spending every year, it was never enough for the Democrats in Congress. And if you're going to claim that Reagan increased spending by a "whopping" amount, and that Democrats raised it "slightly", you out to "be prepared to show evidence; the budgets Reagan and Bush proposed vs. the budgets adopted. If you can't do that, don't expect to be taken seriously."
273	DouglasDubh Tue 5/27/2008 7:50p	<Reagan aside, how does any of that explain how spending went crazy with THIS president, while the GOP controlled the house and senate?> It doesn't. But please don't pretend that the Democrats have been pushing for lower spending. As I said before, the only cuts they are ever willing to make is to our military.
274	Dabob2 Wed 5/28/2008 8:40a	<<The Democrats didn't have nearly the majority to override a veto in the house, and didn't even regain the majority in the senate till 1987. Yet he still submitted budgets based on what those brutes in Congress wanted?>> <Yes. What good would a veto do when Congress puts an omnibus spending bill on your desk after the deadline has passed?> It would force renegotiations, if he was really that intent on it. Of course, he never did. <The truth is that even though President Reagan's budgets increased spending every year, it was never enough for the Democrats in Congress.> The truth is that Reagan raised government spending by raising the military budget more than he cut domestic. They restored a few domestic cuts every year. But if you look at the amounts approved for the military pre-Reagan, they wanted to spend less overall than Regan, with his huge military budget did. You can't pretend military spending isn't government spending. <And if you're going to claim that Reagan increased spending by a "whopping" amount, and that Democrats raised it "slightly", you out to "be prepared to show evidence; the budgets Reagan and Bush proposed vs. the budgets adopted. If you can't do that, don't expect to be taken seriously."> I did that, x-number of years ago when we discussed this previously. You could never refute it because the numbers were irrefutable. You just tried to pretend the Democrats were still to blame for the 80's deficits, as you continue to do now.
275	DouglasDubh Wed 5/28/2008 9:11p	<It would force renegotiations, if he was really that intent on it.> If he thought that renegotiations would have helped, I'm sure he would have tried. Considering that the Democrats reneged on several negotiations, he probably figured that would be futile. <The truth is that Reagan raised government spending by raising the military budget more than he cut domestic.> No, the truth is that President Reagan raised both military spending and revenues, but not by as much as the Democrats raised domestic. <You can't pretend military spending isn't government spending.> Can't and won't. It's actually called out for in the Constitution. And President Reagan's military increases won the Cold War. <I did that, x-number of years ago when we discussed this previously.> I doubt that very much. <You just tried to pretend the Democrats were still to blame for the 80's deficits, as you continue to do now.> Now, as then, I recognize that both parties were to blame. Just that Democrats are more so.
276	Kar2oonMan Wed 5/28/2008 11:29p	>>But please don't pretend that the Democrats have been pushing for lower spending.<< I'm not "pretending" anything. I said both parties spend like drunken sailors. They just spend it on some different things. The problem is when the GOP, usually around election time, expects people to believe they care at all about runaway spending. They ran the show for a good long time, and spent and spent and spent. In regards to how this president's place in history, it says a lot that McCain attends a fundraiser last night with the president, but they bar the press. That's because images of McCain getting chummy with this president is ballot box poison, and he knows it. I don't know if such a thing is unprecedented, but it sure ain't business as usual.
277	Dabob2 Thu 5/29/2008 8:54a	<<It would force renegotiations, if he was really that intent on it.>> <If he thought that renegotiations would have helped, I'm sure he would have tried.> What are you, a mind-reader? Please. He never even attempted it once. <Considering that the Democrats reneged on several negotiations, he probably figured that would be futile.> Examples, please, of these "several negotiations" they reneged on? <<The truth is that Reagan raised government spending by raising the military budget more than he cut domestic.>> <No, the truth is that President Reagan raised both military spending and revenues, but not by as much as the Democrats raised domestic.> False. The raise in military spending was about 140 billion. Meanwhile: "The cuts - in ''discretionary'' domestic spending, from 5.7 percent of the gross national product in 1981 to 3.7 percent this year - have landed heavily on the poor and near-poor." So I'm not sure what you're including in "domestic" but if it includes things like entitlements or payment on the national debt that Reagan raised, that would be very intellectually dishonest on your part. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/f...nted=all Meanwhile, our debt went through the roof. "Interest on the public debt increased from $95 billion in 1981 to $192 billion this year, as the total debt rose from 26.6 percent of the annual gross national product to 43 percent. Some Congressional critics believe that the Reagan Administration deliberately created the high deficits to force reductions in domestic spending. The Administration ''set about creating a fiscal crisis which they hoped would produce a political transformation,'' said Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Democrat of New York. ''When it did not, the crisis only deepened, and now it is with us in protean and unnerving manifestations. '' Prof. Richard Neustadt, a political scientist at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, said: ''Mr. Reagan has been willing to tolerate extraordinary deficits and extraordinary defense expenditures, by previous standards, for the sake of keeping Congress from expanding domestic programs. It became the purpose of the deficits.'' <<You can't pretend military spending isn't government spending.>> <Can't and won't. It's actually called out for in the Constitution.> The level is not. <And President Reagan's military increases won the Cold War.> Typical conservative fantasy. Fiercely held, but a myth. Had we gotten a Breshnev clone in 1985 rather than Gorvachev, the Soviet Union could have limped along for another 10 years, and then I suppose Clinton would have "won" the cold war. Gorbachev policies changed the dynamic - had we gotten a Breshnev clone determined to carry out similar policies, there's no reason to think that the last half of the 80's would have been any different then the first half, or that the Soviets wouldn't have carried on the way North Korea does now before finally collapsing. <I did that, x-number of years ago when we discussed this previously.> <I doubt that very much.> Of course you do. <<You just tried to pretend the Democrats were still to blame for the 80's deficits, as you continue to do now.>> <Now, as then, I recognize that both parties were to blame. Just that Democrats are more so.> Since Reagan raised military spending more than he cut domestic, and the Congress only tinkered around the edges of his budgets, that is not so.
278	mrkthompsn Sat 5/31/2008 1:32p	<Didn't the very last Democratic president leave office with an actual surplus? After having paid off the monumental deficit left by the 2 previous Republican presidents? So mrkthompson I have to wonder what the hell your talking about. You trust the Repulicans budgetary skills more than the Democrats when the only fiscally responsible president in my adult lifetime was NOT a Republican.> They didn't pay the debt left over from the previous presidents (and the previous congresses that required the spending in the first place). They balanced the ~budget~ for THAT year only. They did not balance the debt. Previous debt continues. My point is that politicians should not be SPENDING excessively in the first place, regardless of their ability to balance it with revenue. It's the sheer spending that concerns me. Balancing a $1 trillion budget does not impress me in that the government needed to spend the $1 trillion in the first place. If they instead spent $50 billion max for a year, they would then have the ability to pay for previous debt. I guarentee Obama will come nowhere near of accomplishing this. And let me remind you again: I will be voting Libertarian for the third time in a row. I do not support the Republicans. But the Democrats would be the last on my list of choices.
279	Dabob2 Sat 5/31/2008 2:30p	< If they instead spent $50 billion max for a year, they would then have the ability to pay for previous debt. I guarentee Obama will come nowhere near of accomplishing this.> I guarantee Clinton, McCain or Barr will come nowhere near to accomplishing that either. I agree with the need to be fiscally prudent, but a $50 billion dollar budget is a pipe dream. For starters, the Iraq War alone eats that up in about 4 months. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23551693/
280	DouglasDubh Tue 6/10/2008 8:01p	<Since Reagan raised military spending more than he cut domestic, and the Congress only tinkered around the edges of his budgets, that is not so.> Since Congress did far more than "tinker", it is so.

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