Iriemon

I think you are agreeing with me that without corresponding spending cuts, tax cuts are bad.

Tax policy however can never be looked at in and of themselves when you are talking about budget deficits, because revenues are half the equation.

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WI Crippler

I thought Bush was doing good, with regards to the N. Korea nuclear situation. I don't know if the recent fallout from that is really his fault. N. Korea should have completely disassembled before getting their names removed off the naughty list, not after.

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shuamort

I think Bush did a good job at dismantling the governments of Afghanistan and Iraq. I'm against national building (as he used to be too), but at the same time, I think the world is a better place without the Taliban and Hussein in charge of those parts.


(Of course, what he did after that is a different story, but credit goes where credit's due for that).

RightinNYC

Decreased revenue/Increased spending > Increased revenue/Increased spending.

Although the first will result in deficits, it will (in theory) pressure the government to follow through with the cuts in spending. Increased revenue to meet the increased spending simply sends the message that it's AOK. We haven't seen it yet, but a man can hope.

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Pilots For 911 Truth

Woe, woe, woe, woe. What? Come again, please? Can you expand on that theory a bit? How does turning our ports into extensible strategic ballistic missile launchers on U.S. soil, unravel or decode itself into something good for America?

Sometimes, I think that Bush supporters have completely lost their collective mind. This is nutz - but I am open to hearing the Dubai Ports Grand Slam Theory, if you have one.


I think people who don't educate themselves, remain prime candidates for being lead by the nose, by those power hungry elites who play to the lowest common denominator in our society.

How else do you explain this explosion of urgency to spend $700 billion of our tax dollars to bail-out the top 5% among us, other than a last minute rip-off job before having executive power taken from you after two terms of producing absolutely nothing for the American People?

Our economy has been in trouble since 2002! Where was all the Executive level exigency, then? When the stock market takes a 777 point nose dive, that's not causing a bank to not be able to make a loan for a $500,000.00 mortgage, or your local grocery store from providing you with a gallon of milk, eggs, beef, veggies and flour.

All it means is that the bank would have to make that $500k loan to a qualified applicant - wow, what a concept! We've lost over a trillion dollars of bad debt, bad loans, bloated credit balances - a bunch of stuff that our economy needed to blow-off anyway. We cannot continue running an $11 trillion economy on the bubble all the time with bad underwriting and lousy paper. That house of card won't stand for long.

You want to spend $700 billion of our tax dollars? Fine. I've got no problem with that - I'm game. But, let us use that money to instantiate the new Energy Economy right her in the United States! Solar, Wind, Thermal, Tidal, Nuclear, Clean Coal, Electric and my favorite, Hydrogen Fuel Cell technologies would spawn a complete change in our entire national economic situation over the next 15 years, if we invested $700 billion into launching these new industries!

That would build our economy from the ground up. Spending this money on a bogus rescue plan does nothing to change or alter the ground war where the People live every day. This is the perfect storm opportunity for this country to begin the process of eliminating its dependency on foreign oil while at the same time completely transforming our economy to one that produces real value again by employing American Workers who are researching, developing, engineering, and building brand new American products and services - right here at home!

Wow! What an opportunity we have sitting before us right now. Paying off the top 5% for their own failed business practices, does nothing but put us right back where we were just before the bubble burst! That's insane!

And, you want to call that a Conspiracy Theory? Wake up - and go learn how our economy works best, please!


You the hell better care! It is YOUR money! What do you mean, who the hell cares! Where is your head on this issue?

The bail-out does NOTHING to reset our economy! We will STILL be right back where we were BEFORE the bubble broke down and we will STILL be stuck inside a massive debt oriented economy fallacy and STILL not a nation that produces real VALUE! That's why you should care.

We should use the money to launch the New American Energy Economy. That's a smart move. Over time, the inflated bad debt financial bubbles will decompress, Wall Street will begin to see more and more Energy related IPO's, the nation will join in to support those types of new companies with their retirement dollars via Wall Street and foreign capital will begin to flood our economy as they attempt to get in on the action. That is a win/win/win/win for everybody involved and it will produce more millionaire and more billionaires than our nation has ever seen in its history, while lifting the Middle Class higher than it has ever been before.

The perfect storm combination of our own energy crisis, our dependence upon foreign oil, and the nation's focus on things economic given the Wall Street bombshell, makes this the perfect time to launch a New Energy based Economy where we get back to producing American made products and services.

We could produce something on the order of 50,000,000 new jobs with a new energy economy over the next 10 years alone!


You silly fool! You have not produced a single solitary original thought on how we build a new vibrant economy and you faint what I don’t understand? That’s rich.

I’ve just outlined a conceptual plan that will turn our economy into a potential $16 - $18 Trillion hard-product producing economy delivering both energy products, services and infrastructure to the entire world, give us a multi-hundred billion dollar YoY real budget surplus and generate something on the order of 50,000,000 new jobs paying a real livable wage, while making more millionaires and more billionaires than American has ever seen and boosting the Middle Class both horizontally and vertically. Yet, you claim I don’t understand the Bush/Paulson proposal to bail-out the top 5% while doing nothing but resetting our bloated bad paper economy right back to where it was BEFORE the bubble burst.

Why do you think the USD has taken a beating against ALL other major currencies world wide, ever since George W. Bush took office? Do you understand the significance of a weak USD world wide with a U.S. economy in recession and a back-draft of foreign investment against trillions in bogus U.S. paper and a Fed who jerked-off interest rates to below the rate of inflation and cost of living increases? Do you understand the enormous/impossible catch-22 that places Bernanke into? The Fed can’t make a move here! The Treasure Department can’t make a move here! The Financial Markets don’t want to make a move here out of fear! And, the Foreign Banks and Model Funds refuse to make any more moves other than short our USD into OBLIVION!

And, I don’t understand what’s going on here?

Man, wake up!

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SouthernDemocrat

I agree with you on HIV/AIDS in Africa. Being that Social Security is good until at least 2049, and was good for even longer before the Bush deficits, I can't see where he gets any credit there.

He also set aside some reefs out in the pacific. Other than that, pretty much a text book failed presidency on his part.

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Iriemon

I've heard that theory claimed, but it has not gone that way in practice.

In both the 80s and 00s following tax cuts, revenues fell, both literally and relatively, yet that had no limiting effect on spending which in both period increased sharply mainly attributable to increased military spending.

Following the '93 tax increase, revenues grew much more slowly, less than half the rate during the tax cut periods, slower than GDP and just above the
rate of inflation.

The practice has been the opposite of the theory. When revenues decrease, the Govt just borrows more. That is a big reason the Govt is $10 trillion in debt.

The opposite theory can be made. When taxes are low, most folk (are happy they're paying less taxes and either don't have a clue about Govt debt or couldn't care less about it. So there is not pressure on the Government.

On the other hand, raise taxes enough to pay for spending, people feel the pain, and they will apply pressure to reduce spending so taxes can be lowered.

obvious Child

The only 'reason' against this was bigotry. The only difference would be that profits would be going to Dubai World rather then the British firm who owned the ports.

Aside from your conspiracies, free trade does work.

I never argued he succeeded. Only that he attempted. And we need that attempt to get the ball rolling.

Uh, social Security is a ponzi scheme requiring ever increasing amounts of fresh meat. It will fail at some point. Furthermore, the returns on Social Security are paltry. The government should not to be saving money for people. People should do that for themselves. Bush was right about reforming and even terminating Social Security.

I said some, not all. Bush's overall environmental record is terrible, but that doesn't mean he didn't do some good in some specific cases.

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PeteEU

Worse president in the last 50 years.. yes even worse than Carter.

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PeteEU

Bodhisattva

How in the world is:

Please, let us know what you think President Bush has done a good job at. - ADK

... a loaded question?

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