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"Kif, I have made it with a woman! Inform the crew!"

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"Well if it's gonna be that kind of a party, I'm putting my dick in the mashed potatoes!"

In the interests of bipartisanship, I'll hug your elephant if you'll kiss my ass.

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
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"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001

Let's see. In the eight years Bill Clinton and Al Gore were running the country, unemployment dropped from 7.1 percent to 4;

the poverty rate dropped to 12.7 percent from the 15.1 percent it was under Bush Sr.;

the Dow Jones Industrial Average went from 3,242 to 11,000; the median family income rose from $33,839 to 38,885 (adjusted for inflation);

the defecit went from $290 billion to a projected surplus of $211 billion (kiss that good-bye now that the Bushies are in charge);

the national debt was $1 trillion accumulated by Presidents Washington through Carter, then climbed to $4 trillion under Reagan and Bush, and now is on it's way out in 12 years (well, was, again, kiss that goodbye b/c of the Bushies -- hell, the man couldn't even keep Texas' surplus -- I'd never let the man balance my checkbook);

22 million new jobs were created with Bill Clinton and Al Gore running the country. Home ownership rates are at an all-time high. Minority unemployment rates are at an all-time low.

If this is a meddling, unefficient government which only dissapoints, then the reason it does so is because it clearly shows that the country is better off with Democrats in office.

Now for my Bush rant.

quote:

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Now you, as a mere citizen, might look at the economic performance and think: Maybe we're heading in the right direction. Oh, but you dear reader, are not possessed of the uncanny intellect and keen insight of George W. Bush. He can see behind the facade of the numbers and conclude that we should reverse our course.

He calls for "Prosperity with a Purpose." But what's his purpose, you ask? To make the rich even richer, and keep the rest of us in our place.

George W. Bush's economic plan is a return to the trickle-down days of the 1980s. He wants to cut taxes for the rich, gut the social safety net, turn more and more power over to giant corporations, and limit the rights of working people. W is so 1980s, he even had KC and the Sunshine Band play at his Washington fund raiser. You half expect him with his hair slicked back a-la Gordon Gekko bellowing, "Greed is good!"

You're reading this and you're thinking: Didn't we try this before? And didn't all that trickle down result in a few rich folks and corporations getting the gold mine while the rest of us get the shaft? Didn't those Reagan-Bush economic policies run up the debt, cripple our competitiveness, and drive us into a recession?

But here again, you lack the raw (if unappreciated) genius of George W. Bush. He's thinking, Maybe if we try it again it'll work the second time. Kind of like someone in a lifeboat from the Titanic saying, "Gee, I hope we hit another iceburg."

My friend and former boss, Bill Clinton, likes to say that the definition of insanity is "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result."

But I'll give this to Bush: he's hell-bent on giving Trickle Down II (or, as Poppy might call it, "Voodoo Re-Do") a try.

-Paul Begala, Is Our Children Learning?

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Hey, I figure since First can't back up his liberal bashing, we might as well make this a Dubya bashing thread ...

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
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"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001

[This message has been edited by JeffKardde (edited March 24, 2001).]

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"Well if it's gonna be that kind of a party, I'm putting my dick in the mashed potatoes!"

Trace all prosperity and problems back to their root causes. The question is WHY, not who happened to be where.

Yeah, sure, we had a great economy under Clinton for the first seven years, but was it BECAUSE of Clinton? Post hoc, ergo proptor hoc? Classic logical falacy.

And the Republicans didn't control Congress during the first two years of Clinton's term. Enough time for the Democrats to make sure the Republicans couldn't endanger the economy. Hell -- those 'pubies were so bored, they came up with that unconstitutional Contract with America. Remember that?

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
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"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001

As for the deficit, every idiot knows why that happened, and it wasn't Star Wars.

If you cut revenues, but don't cut spending, you run up a deficit.

Reagan, surfing on his popularity (Remember how many states Mondale carried?), got a Democratic-controlled Congress to cut taxes. A pretty high achievement in and of itself, because lowering taxes on ANYBODY is anathema to what the Democratic party stands for. (You ask how I know it's anathema? Because no Democrat brought it up until the Bush tax cut promise got him elected, even though the surplus was forseen WAY back several years before the 2000 election.)

However, he was unable to force the same congress to cut spending (the other half of the Democratic Ideal), as he wanted to. Hence the deficit ballooned.

"the poverty rate dropped to 12.7 percent from the 15.1 percent it was under Bush Sr.; the Dow Jones Industrial Average went from 3,242 to 11,000; the median family income rose from $33,839 to 38,885 (adjusted for inflation);"

thanks to preexisting policies, not to mention redefinitions of certain things like "the poverty level."

"And the Republicans didn't control Congress during the first two years of Clinton's term. Enough time for the Democrats to make sure the Republicans couldn't endanger the economy."

Yeah... because the Democrats had already done that by passing the largest tax hike in HISTORY... which is what GOT the Republicans control of Congress in the FIRST place. Though admittedly that didn't do much good because Clinton vetoed everything, and there were still too many Demoncrats in Congress to override the veto.

quote:

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Yeah... because the Democrats had already done that by passing the largest tax hike in HISTORY... which is what GOT the Republicans control of Congress in the FIRST place. Though admittedly that didn't do much good because Clinton vetoed everything, and there were still too many Demoncrats in Congress to override the veto.

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Yes, but is it adjusted for inflation?

Well of course they passed a tax hike. Time to pull the nation out of the problem -- and they did. You yourself just admitted the Republicans "didn't do much good", so what other conclusion is there but that the Democrats are responsible for the good health of the economy?

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
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"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001

If you cut revenues, but don't cut spending, you run up a deficit.

True, but you have to remember, during Reagan, revenues WEREN'T cut. In fact, they nearly doubled. The problem was with rampant OVERSPENDING, not with the income. And who controlled spending? The Democrats, of course.

JK:

the Republicans didn't control Congress during the first two years of Clinton's term. Enough time for the Democrats to make sure the Republicans couldn't endanger the economy

Please, how did they do this mythical thing?

Well of course they passed a tax hike. Time to pull the nation out of the problem -- and they did.

The tax hike didn't do that. Revenues were constantly increasing after the massive Reagan tax cut. They never stopped. They slowed down after three tax increases, but eventually, with some help from the GOP congress keeping the DNP from spending every red cent, we outgrew the Democrat-created defecit.

You yourself just admitted the Republicans "didn't do much good", so what other conclusion is there but that the Democrats are responsible for the good health of the economy?

That you know nothing about economics OR history?

The economy we had under Clinton was because of Reagan. The GOP just kept Clinton from doing much damage. Too bad they couldn't stop the massive tax increase, though, 'cause then we might not be where we are today.

You still belive in connections that you can't demonstrate. Post hoc, ergo proptor hoc. You'd be a wonderful conspiracy theorist. Sure, the economy was great under Clinton (for the most part), but WHY? What CAUSED the economy to be great? EXACTLY? The tax increases? The lack of domestic energy policy? The administration-requested cuts in OPEC production?

Or perhaps we can trace it back to when the economy REALLY took off to begin with, back in '82. So what caused THAT? Why, a tax cut.

Someone fairly intelligent (In other words, one of that tiny minority of people I consider smarter than myself) I heard not long ago said that we ought to go to a national SALES tax, rather than an income tax, because then only those who purchase and consume more (like the righ) would be taxed, but not at a rate that they couldn't afford. (Say, 10%)

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
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"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001

quote:

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(Remember how many states Mondale carried?),

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I may have the wrong candidate, but I believe the answer is 1. (West Virginina) He also carried Washington DC.

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Witty Remark