Was the death of the blue collar class a good thing?

bump

This topic touches on many issues concerning welfare and the way liberals and conservatives portray it. Perhaps it should be taken to the debate forum.

We aren't supposed to debate here?

Foxfyre, Centroles has been trying to get you to respond to the question posed at the bottom of the previous page.

I did answer the question. The poster implied that the policies of the Bush administration have only helped the rich. I gave specific reasons where that simply is not true.

As far as paying down the debt, the ONLY way that has ever been possible was in increased productivity, increased productivity, and increased expendable income on the part of Americans and all that is happening as a result of the tax cuts the poster was complaining about. You grow your way out of the debt. The deficits are problematic and I have joined fellow conservatives in strongly criticizing those. I do think the sharp upturn coming out of the 9/11 caused recession will take care of a good deal of that.

However, the government gladly accepts contributions from citizens who wish to help out on the debt and I encourage all of you who feel strongly about that to send in your checks. Meanwhile, I'm satisfied I'm doing my part with the 50 to 60% of my income I am paying in taxes now.

Foxfyre
Perhaps you could repost that proof that my post was in error. If the national debt had been paid down instead of giving it to the rich taxpayers we , all tax payers would have saved 400 billion dollers a year in taxes that go to service the national debt. Productivity dosent help the national debt. It helps business make more money for less pay by saving time which is money. Productivity is a measure of things produced by the workforce measured by the time it takes to produce it.

rabel22, I posted my opinion on this subject. I do not accept the premise that the tax cuts were given only to the rich and I do not accept the premise that the tax cuts somehow were harmful. The current booming economy is pretty absolute proof that the tax cuts did exactly what they were supposed to do which was to bring us out the 9/11 induced recession and back on the road to economic prosperity for everybody.

No previous administration has seen a necessity to pay down the debt. Why hang it all on the current administration?

In any case, it is not the president who will 'pay down the debt' but it is Congress. Lets get on their case if you think it is important enough.

Foxfyre
I guess wether you think the tax cuts were harmful or not depends on which sector of the taxpayers you come from. If youre in the top 10% of earners (the well to do or rich) they are wonderful. If you are from the other 90% paying down the debt would potentially have saved us all money through reducing the 400 billion in interest on the national debt. I suspect this would have saved me as a middle class earner more money than Bushes tax cut has given me. As it turns out it really dosent make any difference, even though one of Bushes promises was to pay down the national debt when he was running for office, because the republican congress would have spent the money on things like encourageing U.S. business to move over seas by giveing them grants and tax breaks. If this is the kind of government you want its fine with me. Im of an age where I wont be around when the U.S. becomes the second rate power this administration is makeing of it. But I do feel sorry for our childern and grandchildern who will think of Mc Donalds as a prime paying job.

rabel22, when you can explain how Bush was supposed to do that when none of his predecessors have, we will have some basis for conversation here. I am nowhere near the top 10%, or the top 20%, or the top 30%, or the top 40% of taxpayers, but I have benefitted from the tax cuts as have the vast majority of Americans.

Paying down the debt would be a good thing, but realistically the only way it will be possible is by growing the economy. Your idea wouldn't save the American public a dime as what was paid on the debt would have come out of increased productivity and economic growth that translates into more personal expendable income that further stimulates the economy.

It would be a very good thing for all of us to lean hard on our elected legislators on both sides of the aisle who are currently spending like drunken sailers to curry points before the November elections.

But otherwise, if you feel so strongly that paying down the debt is the way to go, by all means write the government a check. They'll accept it. But please stop trying to give them more of the 50% of my income that I am already paying in taxes now.

Foxfyre
I do write the government a check each year. This isent even a sensable statement. Most people write the government a check each year. Its called income tax which is just a small part of the taxes I pay a year. When Bush took office we had 2 trillion dollars in the bank which should have been used to pay down the national debt. This would have lowered everyones taxes. The 2 trillion was spent on government and the tax reduction meant that less money was brought into the government so the 2 trillion has been spent on government plus another 600 billion that we are now in debt due to the Bush policies. Bush ran for office as a fiscial conserative. He has a republician congress who pass any law he wants. He could have helped everyone, the whole country if he had passed the fiscal policies he touted during his run for the presidency. He chose instead to help his rich friends with the failed Reagen policies thet President Regan and Bush the 1st passed. If you cant see this than I see no need to post to you again because you are politically blind.

rabel22, if the 2 trillion was there when Bush took office, how come Bill Clinton didn't use it to pay down the debt before he left? And considering that nobody, but nobody had foreseen 9/11 and the deep recession in the wake of it, what did Bush promise to do that he has not done?

I'm sorry that you get so angry that I don't agree with you. But demonizing a president just because you don't like him just isn't my style I guess. I didn't do it to Clinton and I won't stay silent when it is done to Bush.

Although i don't deny your right to that stance, Foxfyre, i would point out how Theodore Roosevelt felt about that subject, which was first quoted here by one of our members:

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."

I cannot see any reason to criticize those who, from their own lights, see reason to defend a policy or action i condemn. I won't necessarily like it, and, depending upon how it is presented to me, either consider the source misguided, contrarian or simply dull-witted. However, there is definitely something servile, as Roosevelt puts it, to stating that the office deserves respect, without regard to whom the present occupant is and how that office holder has behaved.

Roosevelt was considered a "radical" Republican in his day (still cracks me up), but he was by no means a crackpot. Only George Washington has polled higher with the American public--but, of course, George ran unopposed.

Well first of all, Roosevelt was a Democrat, however radical.

And I have no quarrel with those who criticize the president. There are certainly legitimate criticisms--I have written my share of those to the White House and my congressperson and senators since Bush took office.

Then there are those who cannot criticize without demonizing and who cannot disagree without anger or even hating. I deplored those on the right who did that to Clinton. And I deplore those on the left who are doing that to Bush.

It is discouraging in the best of times. But in the time of war, when irrational fears and accusations and political trashing tend to embolden a vicious and irrational enemy, I think we have to be careful.

There were just as many peaceniks during WWII as there are now, but there was a strong reluctance by just about everybody to put our military at higher risk. The country was never more unified than it was during that time and it allowed us to have a decisive victory in spite of being so outmanned and outgunned at the beginning that we were laughable.

Sensible and rational people can make their opinions known while unifying behind and supporting our national leaders. That, for America, is the right course at this time.

Now there ya go again, Foxfyre . . . you really need to check out your statements before you post them:

Federalist presidents

George Washington
John Adams

Democratic (or earlier, Democratic-Republican) presidents

Thomas Jefferson
James Madison
James Monroe
Andrew Jackson
Martin Van Buren
James Polk
Franklin Pierce
James Buchanan
Andrew Johnson
Grover Cleveland
Woodrow Wilson
Franklin Roosevelt
Harry Truman
John Kennedy
Lyndon Johnson
Jimmy Carter
Bill Clinton

Whig presidents

William Henry Harrison
John Tyler
Zachary Taylor
Millard Fillmore

Republican presidents

Abraham Lincoln
Ulysses Grant
Rutherford Hayes
James Garfield
Chester Arthur
Benjamin Harrison
William McKinley
Theodore Roosevelt [/b]
William Taft
Warren Harding
Calvin Coolidge
Herbert Hoover
Dwight Eisenhower
Richard Nixon
Gerald Ford
Ronald Reagan
George Bush
George W. Bush

Presidents belonging to no party

John Quincy Adams

Presidents who changed party affiliation after their presidency

Millard Fillmore (Whig) became a candidate for the American or Know-Nothing Party.
Theodore Roosevelt (Republican) founded the Progressive or Bull Moose Party.


I required all of about three seconds to find that on-line. As i know that Theodore Roosevelt was a member of the Republican Party throughout all his life until he founded the Bull Moose after his second term, i was confident of it. If ever you're unsure of your information, you might look. It's embarrassing to be wrong, as i know from personal experience.

You then beggar the likely judgment of any among the readers who know that Theodore Roosevelt was a Republican.

As for your series of qualifications after the fact in regard to the statement you made which i criticized--the criticism stands, and is a relevant point to advance when people are defending the policies of an adminstration which one considers unpardonably arrogant and inept, and attempting to wrap the president in the flag. God knows he does that himself often enough not to need the help of thousands on-line.

(Edit: here, i'll highlight his name for you, in the list of Republican presidents.)

Foxy, you are thinking of Franklin, Set is referring to Theodore Roosevelt.
The aspect of your posts that irritates the smurf out of me is this:



"My country wrong or right" is the mindest of the intellectually lazy. It is exceptionally unpatriotic. This is the path toward totalitarianism. Perhaps there are those who would prefer such a system, but I have a suspicion that most of us, including you, would not.

No, not the mindset of "my country right or wrong'. Those who can find no fault are almost as bad as those who find fault with everything.

Criticize a bad policy on its own merits. Americans should and must do that to align our values and to have a voice in what happens.

But because to paint everything a man does as black and evil is not even rational, much less constructive. I do believe when there is a loud chorus of that kind of rhetoric, our enemies rejoice because they feel they are succeeding in bringing us down.

You really don't see it, do you? That is rather sad.

Was my statement about paying down the debt instead of tax breaks for the rich ever answered.

Rabel22 was demonizing Bush's asinine policies, not Bush himself. His tax plan was strongly criticized during the campaign as being a disaster by several tax watch organizations. The numbers did not add up then and they do not add up now.

Now we also have a costly war to pay for and the only ones making sacrifices for it are our military. It is time for the greedy conservatives to give back some of the tax cuts that our younger generation will have to pay for. We cannot continue to spend more than we take in. No wonder Debt Relief Clearing House is one of the top sponsors of conservative talk radio.

I did miss Setanta's first line naming Theodore Roosevelt instead of FDR. Sorry about that.