AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

@ican711nm,

that's because you are too ignorant to realize that the increasing unemployment number was caused by bush; that Obama was able to "limit" the increase in the unemployment is what most people like you miss.

Do you understand anything about economics and trends in employment/unemployment caused by the Great Recession? I think not.

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@cicerone imposter,

ci, do you need to be kept reminded that Bush has not been president for almost 2 years, and that the average unemployment under Bush was only a little over 5% if my memory is correct.

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@okie,

GWB was sending them over Iraq and getting them killed. A surefire way to reduce unemployment.

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@okie,

okie, You wrote on another thread:

Quote:

Your slanted thinking does not allow you to see the world clearly.

Your problem, okie, is you have no common sense. GW Bush is responsible for the Great Recession that started in December of 2007. Unemployment trends since Bush was president has been upward - even after his tax giveaways to the wealthy.

Obama never claimed to be god; there is nobody on this planet that can change unemployment trends when the world suffers from a financial crisis. What Obama has done, and supported by many experts in economics, is the simple fact that without Obama's actions, the Great Recession would have been much worse. He gave tax cuts to those earning less than $75,000, and extended unemployment benefits to Americans who could not find jobs. Those also included republicans.

Obama's actions on TARP saved our banks and financial institution - without which our economy would have imploded.

You're the one with "slanted thinking."

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@cicerone imposter,

Obama has made the recession that started the end of 2007 far worse by emulating what Roosevelt did--spend, spend, spend--starting in 1933 to make the Hoover recession a depression. But in 1941, Roosevelt's depression started to recover when Roosevelt stopped giving tax payer's money away and began buying commodities, services and products from the private sector plus drafting several million Americans to help fight WWII.

The Hoover recession started in 1931 when Hoover started giving lots of tax payer's money away. Roosevelt could have ended it by ending Hoover's give-aways instead of increasing them.

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@ican711nm,

ican, You can repeat "spend spend spend" as many times as you wish, but you haven't explained why Obama's spending caused the Great Recession.

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@okie,

Quote:

do you need to be kept reminded that Bush has not been president for almost 2 years

I was in Berlin in 1976. There were still a few buildings that had not restored since WWII. There were still bullet holes in buildings. Another American, who was on my tour bus, remarked that the Germans had made a great deal of progress since the 1960s when there was still bomb rubble in the streets.

While bushwacker II was not the disaster that WW II was, it takes more than two years to clean up what took his minions (he was, after all, the "spokespresident," akin to a spokesmodel) did to hurt the country during their eight years of rampage.

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@ican711nm,

Quote:

The Hoover recession started in 1931 when Hoover started giving lots of tax payer's money away. Roosevelt could have ended it by ending Hoover's give-aways instead of increasing them.

Newspeak is here!

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@cicerone imposter,

Quote:

Where do you want to cut government spending? Please provide us with some details.

Here is a list from the Heritage Foundation that lists $343 billion that can be cut right now...

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2010/10/How-to-Cut-343-Billion-from-the-Federal-Budget

Here are a few highlights, all the numbers are in millions...

Quote:

$8,000
Return Pell Grants to their 2009 funding level of $24 billion, which is still double the 2007 level.

$12,500
Halve the $25 billion spent to maintain vacant federal properties.

$10,000
Cut the federal employee travel budget to $4 billion (half of FY 2000 spending).

$3,000
Freeze federal pay until it can be reformed.

$1,000
Suspend acquisition of federal office space.

$600
Trim the federal vehicle fleet by 20 percent (a reduction of 100,000 vehicles).

$300
Cut the House and Senate budgets back to the 2008 level of $2.2 billion.

$215
Eliminate the Presidential Election Campaign Fund.

$100
Tighten controls on federal employee credit cards and cut down on delinquencies.

$70
Require federal employees to fly coach on domestic flights.

There are more examples at the link I posted.

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@mysteryman,

mm, How many jobs will that cost?

On Pell Grants: How many potential students will be turned away because they have no other source to attend college? We need to educate our children in order to remain competitive in this world.

How do you intend to make up for this shortfall?

Heritgage.org is a conservative think tank; how will they take care of our country besides cutting over $300 billion from the federal budget?

I will not waste my time with each item listed, but my question about "how jobs will be lost" needs to be answered and explained.

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

So because they are a conservative organization you are diacounting their opinion?
That seems kind of silly to me.

How many jobs will be lost?
No matter what cuts are made in govt spending, that seems to be your first question.
It is not possible to make cuts without cutting some jobs.
While it is regretable that anyone loses their job, sometimes its unavoidable.

As for the Pell Grants, you do realize that the proposed cut would still leave it at double the 2007 amount.
And since the pell grant is not enough to fund an entire college education by itself, I dont understand why you think it will affect how many people go to school with it.

But you also didnt comment on some of the other proposals.
How is cutting the size of the govt fleet of cars bad?
Or cutting the amount of money spent on maintaining vacant govt properties, surely you cant be against that, can you?

Are you against everything on the list, because it came from a conservative organization, or do you have specific, serious objections to each item.
And if you do, would you share those objections with us all.

1 Reply

@mysteryman,

No, it is not my first question. This is a time in our economy when private sector jobs will be slow to produce, and we already have 25 million Americans out of work.

This is a question not even mentioned in the cuts in the budget.

It doesn't matter whether its a conservative or liberal site, but most recommendations that have been made by conservatives during the past several years have lacked detail.

It's easy to bring up numbers, but not so easy to explain what those numbers represent. I have seen a financial article recently about Boehner talking about cutting $100 billion for next year, but he also doesn't provide any details.

As a retired accountant, I'm always interested in details.

Cutting any cost that doesn't impact our already high unemployment should be a good thing; but, here again, we need to know a) why there's an excess of government fleet of cars, b) who uses them, and c) how did they come up with that particular number to cut?

1 Reply

@mysteryman,

Quote:

$8,000
Return Pell Grants to their 2009 funding level of $24 billion, which is still double the 2007 level.

We might as well cut off all science research while we are at it. Penny wise and pound foolish. In a world where the US already trails many countries in the number getting a college education, you want to cut it in half? Why worry about the US in 20 years when we can guarantee that we won't be a world leader by cutting spending now?

Quote:

$12,500
Halve the $25 billion spent to maintain vacant federal properties.

How does this save money? If we stop maintaining the properties then what? Do we just let homeless people move into them? Or do we just let them deteriorate and lose value?

Quote:

$10,000
Cut the federal employee travel budget to $4 billion (half of FY 2000 spending).

Did the cost of travel get cut in 50% since 2000? Why would we possibly want FBI, Justice, State Department and civilians working for the military to travel? I can think of many reasons.

Quote:

$300
Cut the House and Senate budgets back to the 2008 level of $2.2 billion.

Why is travel cut to 1/2 of the 2000 numbers but not Congressional budgets?

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I can also suggest the feds cut $500 billion. What does that mean to jobs, and the operation of our government? What kind of impact will that have to current and future America?

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@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

ican, You can repeat "spend spend spend" as many times as you wish, but you haven't explained why Obama's spending caused the Great Recession.

Yes I have explained why! I have explained it several times here. But I shall indulge your absence of memory.

It's the same damn reason why Roosevelt's give-money-away caused Hoover's recession to be turned into Roosevelt's great depression. When the government gives away increasing amounts of tax payer money, it takes money away from investment in the private sector that produces jobs and gives it to people who produce little or nothing for the private sector--no investments and fewer purchases of stuff or services that cause jobs to be created.

When Roosevelt in 1941 started buying stuff and services from the private sector to support our war effort, those purchases grew to constitute significantly more investment in the private sector as the private profits from that investment grew and were reinvested.

Yes, its hard for the invidious to accept. The unwealthy depend on the wealthy to invest in job creation and maintenance. The wealthy depend on the unwealthy to produce profits for the wealthy that they can reinvest. Many of the unwealthy learn from the wealthy how to become wealthy themselves so that the more enterprising among the unwealthy become wealthy themselves. That often causes competition with the wealthy that makes some of the wealthy become less wealthy until--and if--they learn how to compete better.

A lot of people observe that some of the wealthy and unwealthy become wealthy or wealthier by unlawful means. We have to hold our government accountable for enforcing the law more effectively. Otherwise the government and the crooks will eventually become our dictator by catering to unwealthy and wealthy crooks to get elected.

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to be saying that we need budget cuts but we cant cut jobs, services, or expenses to do it.

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The rather rambunctious new Republican majority claims today that they will come to town with a plan to immediately cut $200Bn in Federal spending (reducing the annual deficit from $1.3 Trillion). No specifics.
Mysteryman posted a link to the conservative Heritage Foundation suggesting cuts to programs totaling some $370Bn. I can't challenge the numbers. I might agree with some of the ideas but not with others.
I disagree, CI, with the notion that you seem to express about this not being the right time to cut programs because it might lead to increased unemployment amongst federal government. Did I misinterpret something?
Thanks for clarification.

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@ican711nm,

Quote:

It's the same damn reason why Roosevelt's give-money-away caused Hoover's recession to be turned into Roosevelt's great depression.

I guess when you ignore history, you try to repeat it ican.

Hoover's recession became Roosevelt's great depression?
Wow.. Talk about an attempt to completely rewrite history there ican.
GDP growth for Hoover
1933 ... - 8.6
1931 ...- 6.5
1932 ... - 13.2
1933 ... -1.3 (FDR takes office)
1934 ... +10.9
1935 ... +8.9

Hint, the largest GDP loses were during Hoover's term. Saying Roosevelt turned Hoover's recession into a depression ignores the GDP numbers completely ican.

By the time FDR took office the GDP was down over 25%. That would make it Hoover's depression without question.

1 Reply

@mysteryman,

I didn't say you can't cut jobs. I said you must first understand what the consequence of all actions they plan to take. Not all jobs are sacrosanct; we all know and understand about government waste. That would be a good place to start.

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

Govt waste?
Like unused airline tickets that are non-refundable, or like the millions in waste and fraud with govt credit cards?

Or like the millions of $ the govt pumps into one financially troubled business every year?

1 Reply

AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

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