0
   

Let's talk about replacing GWBush in 2004.

 
 
blatham
 
  1  
Reply Tue 25 May, 2004 06:02 am
From US Marine General (retired) Anthony Zinni's new book...
Quote:
"In the lead-up to the Iraq war and its later conduct, I saw, at a minimum, true dereliction, negligence, and irresponsibility; at worst, lying, incompetence and corruption. False rationales as a justification; a flawed strategy; lack of planning; the unnecessary alienation of our allies; the underestimation of the task; the unnecessary distraction from real threats; and the unbearable strain dumped on our overstretched military, all of these caused me to speak out. I did it before the war as a caution, and as an attempt to voice concern over situations I knew would be dangers, where the outcomes would likely mean real harm to our nation's interests. I was called a traitor and turncoat by Pentagon officials. The personal attacks are painful … but the photos of the casualties I see every day in the papers and on TV convince me not to shrink from the obligation to speak the truth."
0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  1  
Reply Tue 25 May, 2004 06:06 am
Republicans putting US forces at risk by speaking negatively about the President and the war...

Quote:
Retired Gen. Anthony Zinni, former CentCom chief: "There has been poor strategic thinking in this. There has been poor operational planning and execution on the ground. And to think that we are going to 'stay the course,' the course is headed over Niagara Falls. I think it's time to change course a little bit, or at least hold somebody responsible for putting you on this course. Because it's been a failure."

GOP Sen. Chuck Hagel: "I think you've got a president who is not schooled, educated, experienced in foreign policy in any way, versus his father."

GOP Sen. Lincoln Chafee: "The president talked about being humble when he was running for office but the opposite seems to be true."

GOP Sen. Pat Roberts: "In fighting the global war against terrorism,' we need to restrain what are growing U.S. messianic instincts -- a sort of global social engineering where the United States feels it is both entitled and obligated to promote democracy -- by force, if necessary."

GOP Sen. Richard Lugar: "I am very hopeful that the president and his administration will articulate precisely what is going to happen as much as they can, day by day, as opposed to a generalization."

Conservative writer and novelist Mark Helprin: "The war has been run incompetently, with an apparently deliberate contempt for history, strategy and thought, and with too little regard for the American soldier, whose mounting casualties seem to have no effect on the boastfulness of the civilian leadership."

Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol: "Well, that's right, [Bush] did drive us into a ditch."

CNN's bow-tied conservative Tucker Carlson: "I supported the war and now I feel foolish."

Former House GOP Leader Dick Armey: "We're letting the political hacks overrule the policy wonks in this town."

Conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan: "It's long past time that people can be asked simply to trust the president. After the WMD intelligence debacle and the Abu Ghraib disgrace, he has run out of that capital. He has to tell us how we will win, what we are doing, how it all holds together, why the infrastructure repair is still in disarray, and how a political solution is possible. I'm not sure any more that this president has the skills or competence to pull it off. But I am sure that he has very little time to persuade us he can."

American Conservative Union vice chairman Donald Devine, who refused to join a standing ovation for President Bush at the ACU banquet last week, and called Bush's speech "long and boring."

Conservative columnist George F. Will: "This administration cannot be trusted to govern if it cannot be counted on to think and, having thought, to have second thoughts."
0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  1  
Reply Tue 25 May, 2004 06:14 am
Quote:
Three leading arms control experts say a Bush administration plan for bioweapons research may violate an international bioweapons ban and encourage other countries to do the same.

The experts were responding to a presentation given by the deputy director of the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center, part of the Homeland Security department, who said last February that the center might study whether deadlier bacteria and viruses could be developed to ensure that U.S. defenses against the most lethal pathogens would be effective. The center could also look into developing aerosols that contain deadly germs and new methods of delivering germ-warfare agents.

In a statement, the arms control experts said: "The rapidity of elaboration of American biodefense programs, their ambition and administrative aggressiveness and the degree to which they push against the prohibitions of the Biological Weapons Convention are startling." Their statement, called "Biodefense, crossing the line," can be found on the Web site for the journal "Politics and the Life Sciences"


http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room//index.html
0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  1  
Reply Tue 25 May, 2004 06:24 am
How important is truth? Not very. How important is presentation and myth? All important.
Quote:
Cellphones fitted with digital cameras have been banned in US army installations in Iraq on orders from Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, The Business newspaper report.

Quoting a Pentagon source, the paper said the US Defence Department believes that some of the damning photos of US soldiers abusing Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad were taken with camera phones.

"Digital cameras, camcorders and cellphones with cameras have been prohibited in military compounds in Iraq," it said, adding that a "total ban throughout the US military" is in the works.

Disturbing new photos of Iraqi prisoner abuse, which the US government had reportedly tried to keep hidden, were published Friday in the Washington Post newspaper.

The photos emerged along with details of testimony from inmates at Abu Ghraib who said they were sexually molested by female soldiers, beaten, sodomised and forced to eat food from toilets.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/05/23/1085250870873.html
0 Replies
 
plainoldme
 
  1  
Reply Tue 25 May, 2004 11:05 am
Goodness, we aren't quiet on this subject, are we?

The League of Conservation Voters has given bush, "the equivalent of a zero" according to the Boston Globe, for his environmental positions.

Anyone occupying the White House after 2004 will not be in an enviable position.
0 Replies
 
mporter
 
  1  
Reply Tue 25 May, 2004 01:36 pm
nimh --no , that was just me. Read my post. I was deliberately pulling legs on that one.

I can, if needs be, find some reporter, Newsmax comes to mind, which will outline Striesand's great influence on the awards. But, my referral from the obviously partisan and prejudiced newsmax source would be as bad as Mr. Blatham's citation concering the fact that Afghanistan is in chaos--That citation came from uk Independent- a notorious left wing paper which backs the socialist Labour party in England.
0 Replies
 
mporter
 
  1  
Reply Tue 25 May, 2004 02:00 pm
Mr. Blatham gives us a VERY LIBERAL site "American Progress" which talks about the "alleged" brief history of threats and defamation.

OH,goody!!!

Does this mean that I can reference National Review, Weekly Standard and/or Newsmax for stories about the people who knew Clinton who were killed "allegedly" because they were his enemies?
Can I?

I won't. Because BS on the right is as bad as BS on the left.

American Progress as a source. Mr. Blatham should be ashamed of himself.
0 Replies
 
mporter
 
  1  
Reply Tue 25 May, 2004 02:01 pm
I understand that Zinni is retired. Does that mean that he doesn't have a security clearance any more?

Maybe he is now as ignorant as to what is happening as Mr. Blatham is.
0 Replies
 
Tarantulas
 
  1  
Reply Tue 25 May, 2004 02:07 pm
The Protocols of the Elders of Zinni
May 25th, 2004

A few months back, leftist Jewish critics, such as Frank Rich, Abraham Foxman and Leon Wieseltier, trashed Mel Gibson's movie, The Passion of the Christ, for what they called its blatant anti-Semitism, warning of the danger the movie could create for Jews wherever the movie was shown. So far, 50 million people have seen the movie in America, and nobody has been seen running out of a cineplex calling for Jewish blood.

They are yelling for Jewish blood however, in many countries around the world, especially Muslims leaving their mosques after furious incitement by their Wahhabi-trained imams. On this subject, we hear less from some of these same critics, particularly Frank Rich, who this week found the time to laud the latest Michael Moore screed, presumably for its dedication to truthfulness.

The Passion has not generated any pogroms in America, but a new insidious strand of Jew-hatred is creeping out of the closet and making its appearance in widely broadcast mainstream media. In an utterly shameful program on CBS's 60 Minutes last night, Steve Kroft conducted a fawning interview with retired General Anthony Zinni, the latest in the collection of recent authors brought onto the show to trash the Bush administration over Iraq, the war or terror, tax cuts, you name it. First was former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, then Richard Clarke, and then Bob Woodward.

Credit some of this to sleaziness -- other Viacom companies publish some of these authors' books (not always mentioned during 60 Minutes). So these plugs which are broadcast before millions of viewers are a boost to sales, as well as a blow to Bush, creating real political and commercial synergy for CBS.

In years past, ABC news, and its anchorman Peter Jennings, were the kings of disdain for the Bush Administration, and of course for Israel. A few weeks back, Ted Koppel devoted a longer-than-usual segment of Nightline to showing the faces and reading the names of all the soldiers killed in Iraq. To accompany the many caustic programs about Israel's security measures, Koppel broadcast a puff piece on Palestinian suicide bombers last year. But CBS has lapped the field this year. The Woodward interview was of interest, since Woodward's book is not, on balance, a body slam on the Administration. In fact the Bush campaign links to it on its website. But interviewer Mike Wallace made a point of pushing Woodward on only the sections of the book where the Administration came off unfavorably.

Despite having 15 minutes for a story, instead of the 30 seconds to a minute on the nightly news, 60 Minutes has always been a program lacking in nuance, or (hold the laughter) balance. Within about 15 seconds, each segment's slant is obvious. Last night featured three puff pieces: one with Zinni, one with a convicted murderer of four people who has become a "good guy" on death row, and one with a philanthropist who sponsors inner city kids for college.

But the Zinni piece was the lead, and the most important. Zinni has been a critic of the war with Iraq for some time. He believes Iraq was successfully contained before we went to war. This, in itself, is a reasonable position to take. This was a war of choice. Zinni also argues that if we chose to go to war, we needed more force strength. So he agrees with the Powell doctrine that you need lots of manpower, to insure a successful military campaign and post war outcome.

Zinni says we had too few men at the start, and for the post war period. He also says that Ambassador Bremer has made some mistakes (I guess Zinni never has), including dismissing the Iraqi army, which he says eliminated any ability to get Iraqis to help secure the country, and was responsible for our forces being viewed as an occupation army. In itself, these criticisms are nothing new, and in fact, if this is the sum of what Zinni had to say, one wonders what contribution to the debate CBS thought he was making. Some supporters of the war effort agree with part of the Zinni critique -- particularly on the size of our force commitment.

But Zinni is not comfortable just with criticism of how the war or post war effort was run. He needs to blame people, and he wants heads to fall. And he names names -- in particular the group he calls the "neocons", naming five men: Doug Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, Lewis Libby, Richard Perle, and Ellot Abrams, as the key ideologues who caused this war to occur. And their real justification for pushing the US to war, we learn from Zinni, were not the three stated by the Administration -- weapons of mass destruction, terror links, or gross human rights violations.

Rather, it was to secure Israel, and to remake the Middle East in our image, a noble but unrealistic vision, according to the General. The fact that the named neocons are all Jewish, Zinni says, is accidental. He says this is irrelevant to him. But if it is irrelevant, why does he only provide the names of Jewish neocons? Are there no others? How Jewish is Jeanne Kirkpatrick or Bill Bennett? And what evidence does he have for his charge that the war was fought for Israel? Zinni never even touches on the three justifications the Administration offered for the war in the 60 Minutes segment. But Steve Kroft repeats the neocon slander, and the link to Israel, and names the Jewish names. This after all is the important part of the story.

In late 2002, the earth collapsed below Senator Trent Lott, for making a joke about Strom Thurmond at a dinner gala that appeared to excuse his segregationist past. When Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd did the same thing, whitewashing former Klansman and now Senator Robert Bryd of West Virginia a few weeks back, the major media ignored the story. Then two weeks ago, the doddering and thankfully retiring Senator Fritz Hollings penned an op-ed for a South Carolina newspaper charging that the war in Iraq was fought for Israel, and to win Jewish votes for the Bush administration, and blaming three Jews for pushing us to war: Perle, Wolfowitz, and columnist Charles Krauthammer (if you are scoring, Perle and Wolfowitz now lead the villainy derby with two mentions each). With few exceptions, the mainstream media failed to report on Hollings's original charge, or his incoherent speech in Congress defending the article last week.

None of this Jew-baiting is accidental. The road is being prepared for an ugly smear campaign against Jews and Israel. If the war is lost, then the American dead, and all the money spent, will be laid at the feet of a few Jewish political writers and government officials, most of whom are completely unknown to the vast majority of Americans, who can rarely name their Senators or Congressman.

Part of this is simply politics, albeit an unusually ugly and dangerous politics. Think of the ads in the 2000 campaign run by the NAACP, about James Byrd being dragged from a truck in Jasper, Texas with the money line read by the murdered man's daughter: "when George Bush did not support new hates crimes legislation in Texas, it was like my father was lynched a second time".

It is telling, and unfortunate, that the Jewish voices who feared the passions aroused by The Passion, are silent about the Jew-baiting over the war. We have not yet heard from Leon Wieseltier or Frank Rich about this (and with Rich, you know you won't). Abe Foxman, to his credit, was quick to denounce Hollings for his rant. For many Jews on the left, policy differences with the Administration and the need to defeat George Bush trump any need for consistency in their responses to threats to America's Jews.

The absurdity of the charge that the Jewish neocons led us to war requires one to believe that Dick Cheney, and Don Rumsfeld, and Condoleeza Rice are push-overs, without real views of their own, and they were therefore easily manipulated by the nefarious neocons. So Lewis Libby is the power behind Cheney, and Elliot Abrams the man behind Condoleeza Rice (how un-feminist to make this charge). Feith and Wolfowitz need only whisper in Rummy's ear, and he marches soldiers off to war. And masterminding all of it from afar, is the Prince of Darkness, Richard Perle. Now we have all learned these last few years that Dick Cheney tells George Bush what to do, so there is no need for Zinni to link any of the neocons directly to Bush.

It is remarkable that people could buy such nonsense. We are not dealing here with an unusually cautious Presidency. That was the last one, except when it came to undergarments. But this Administration, if anything, has thrown caution to the wind. George Bush has risked his Presidency on Iraq. Bill Clinton feared losing a single man in battle, and had Dick Morris conduct a poll to determine how the public would react to his potential vacation locations one year.

The leaders of this Administration appear to have great confidence in the actions they have taken and to believe in the justifications they have provided for their actions. There is a lot less self-doubt with this team than the last one. One may think this is a good thing or a bad thing. That is beside the point. But to argue that the leaders -- Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rice -- are a bunch of wimps, manipulated by underlings, would be pretty far-fetched, even without the Jewish conspiracy charge.

But the Jewish conspiracy charge is not accidental. Zinni, and his ilk do not have any serious hope that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld or Rice will resign. Rumsfeld seems to have weathered the attacks against him for now. But the underlings are more vulnerable, and so are the Jews.

For decades, Jews were not welcome in the State Department or intelligence agencies because of the professed fear by others in these agencies or departments that they would be a fifth column for Israel. The real problem of course, is that a fifth column already exists: generations of diplomats and politicians, in thrall to Arabia, who follow their government service by joining the Saudi sponsored think tanks, and Middle East institutes on campus, or as journalists penning the Arab party line.

This was considered a natural and positive (lucrative) phenomenon. Of course, keep these oily wallets open for the next generation. But these pesky Jews have upset the natural order. They are threatening the money train, and have hijacked foreign policy, all for Ariel Sharon, of course. So in the end, these attacks have a more insidious purpose: not just to tar the Jews in America, but to undermine support for Israel, by the malicious suggestion that Israel is really creating American foreign policy through its neocon strike force, and that Sharon is responsible for sending American boys off to die for Israel.

The left was happy to call Pat Buchanan on the rug for similar anti-Semitic slanders during the first Gulf War (given the elder Bush's frosty relationship with Israel, the Buchanan charge was laughable). Now the charges are being made by mainstream voices and aired on national television to wide audiences. The purveyors of this trash (the Steve Krofts of the world) are either knaves, or accomplices. Somewhere, Pat Buchanan is smiling.

Richard Baehr

Link
0 Replies
 
BillW
 
  1  
Reply Tue 25 May, 2004 04:02 pm
So it's unanimous agreement -

Quote:
Let's replace GWBush in 2004.
0 Replies
 
plainoldme
 
  1  
Reply Tue 25 May, 2004 05:17 pm
WOW!!! Are mporter and tarantulas right of center . . . and angry! Why?
0 Replies
 
nimh
 
  1  
Reply Tue 25 May, 2004 06:11 pm
mporter wrote:
But, my referral from the obviously partisan and prejudiced newsmax source would be as bad as Mr. Blatham's citation concering the fact that Afghanistan is in chaos--That citation came from uk Independent- a notorious left wing paper which backs the socialist Labour party in England.


Actually, The Independent is highly critical of the Labour Party.

The Labour Party, after all, is Tony Blair's party - and The Independent is very critical of the war he so stridently defends.

The Independent was originally founded, if memory serves well, in the eighties, as a centre-left, non-partisan newspaper. It was meant to provide an alternative to the conservative Times and Telegraph on the one hand and The Guardian - which is closely tied up with the Labour Party, be it in a love/hate relationship of sorts - on the other.
0 Replies
 
mporter
 
  1  
Reply Wed 26 May, 2004 03:48 am
The paper, as you have so aptly described is indeed center left, with an emphasis on "left" Of course the labour party is Mr. Blair's party. Do you deny that the left wing of that party has been sniping at him for the last two years?
0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  1  
Reply Wed 26 May, 2004 10:43 am
Quote:
General Is Said To Have Urged Use of Dogs

By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 26, 2004; Page A01


A U.S. Army general dispatched by senior Pentagon officials to bolster the collection of intelligence from prisoners in Iraq last fall inspired and promoted the use of guard dogs there to frighten the Iraqis, according to sworn testimony by the top U.S. intelligence officer at the Abu Ghraib prison.

According to the officer, Col. Thomas Pappas, the idea came from Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, who at the time commanded the U.S. military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and was implemented under a policy approved by Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the top U.S. military official in Iraq.

"It was a technique I had personally discussed with General Miller, when he was here" visiting the prison, testified Pappas, head of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade and the officer placed in charge of the cellblocks at Abu Ghraib prison where abuses occurred in the wake of Miller's visit to Baghdad between Aug. 30 and Sept. 9, 2003.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55703-2004May25.html
0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  1  
Reply Wed 26 May, 2004 10:44 am
Posing as Captive, G.I. Beaten
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: May 26, 2004


Quote:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/26/national/26GITM.html
0 Replies
 
cicerone imposter
 
  1  
Reply Tue 1 Jun, 2004 05:23 pm
Dooh Nibor Economics
June 1, 2004
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Last week The Washington Post got hold of an Office of
Management and Budget memo that directed federal agencies
to prepare for post-election cuts in programs that George
Bush has been touting on the campaign trail. These include
nutrition for women, infants and children; Head Start; and
homeland security. The numbers match those on a computer
printout leaked earlier this year - one that administration
officials claimed did not reflect policy.

Beyond the routine mendacity, the case of the leaked memo
points us to a larger truth: whatever they may say in
public, administration officials know that sustaining Mr.
Bush's tax cuts will require large cuts in popular
government programs. And for the vast majority of
Americans, the losses from these cuts will outweigh any
gains from lower taxes.

It has long been clear that the Bush administration's claim
that it can simultaneously pursue war, large tax cuts and a
"compassionate" agenda doesn't add up. Now we have direct
confirmation that the White House is engaged in bait and
switch, that it intends to pursue a not at all
compassionate agenda after this year's election.

That agenda is to impose Dooh Nibor economics - Robin Hood
in reverse. The end result of current policies will be a
large-scale transfer of income from the middle class to the
very affluent, in which about 80 percent of the population
will lose and the bulk of the gains will go to people with
incomes of more than $200,000 per year.

I can't back that assertion with official numbers, because
under Mr. Bush the Treasury Department has stopped
releasing information on the distribution of tax cuts by
income level. Estimates by the Urban Institute-Brookings
Institution Tax Policy Center, which now provides the
numbers the administration doesn't want you to know, reveal
why. This year, the average tax reduction per family due to
Bush-era cuts was $1,448. But this average reflects huge
cuts for a few affluent families, with most families
receiving much less (which helps explain why most people,
according to polls, don't believe their taxes have been
cut). In fact, the 257,000 taxpayers with incomes of more
than $1 million received a bigger combined tax cut than the
85 million taxpayers who make up the bottom 60 percent of
the population.

Still, won't most families gain something? No - because the
tax cuts must eventually be offset with spending cuts.

Three years ago George Bush claimed that he was cutting
taxes to return a budget surplus to the public. Instead, he
presided over a move to huge deficits. As a result, the
modest tax cuts received by the great majority of Americans
are, in a fundamental sense, fraudulent. It's as if someone
expected gratitude for giving you a gift, when he actually
bought it using your credit card.

The administration has not, of course, explained how it
intends to pay the bill. But unless taxes are increased
again, the answer will have to be severe program cuts,
which will fall mainly on Social Security, Medicare and
Medicaid - because that's where the bulk of the money is.

For most families, the losses from these cuts will far
outweigh any gain from lower taxes. My back-of-the-envelope
calculation suggests that 80 percent of all families will
end up worse off; the Center on Budget and Policy
Priorities will soon come out with a more careful, detailed
analysis that arrives at a similar conclusion. And the only
really big beneficiaries will be the wealthiest few percent
of the population.

Does Mr. Bush understand that the end result of his
policies will be to make most Americans worse off, while
enriching the already affluent? Who knows? But the
ideologues and political operatives behind his agenda know
exactly what they're doing.

Of course, voters would never support this agenda if they
understood it. That's why dishonesty - as illustrated by
the administration's consistent reliance on phony
accounting, and now by the business with the budget cut
memo - is such a central feature of the White House
political strategy.

Right now, it seems that the 2004 election will be a
referendum on Mr. Bush's calamitous foreign policy. But
something else is at stake: whether he and his party can
lock in the unassailable political position they need to
proceed with their pro-rich, anti-middle-class economic
strategy. And no, I'm not engaging in class warfare. They
are.


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/01/opinion/01KRUG.html?ex=1087089946&ei=1&en=ead1839533e7482a

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
0 Replies
 
PDiddie
 
  1  
Reply Wed 2 Jun, 2004 07:27 pm
Here's my comment on my cut-and-paste:

Heh, heh, heh... Cool

Quote:
Betsy Berlin is angry. "I don't know what (President) Bush is talking about when he says this is a strong economy; this economy is getting worse," says Berlin, 44, a self-described "domestic goddess" and registered Republican from Ambler, Pa. "There are job layoffs, prices are rising." Oh, and one more thing: "I'm a proud American, but this Iraq war puts a bad taste in my mouth." Come November, this Bush voter plans to switch to Democrat John F. Kerry.
0 Replies
 
septembri
 
  1  
Reply Thu 3 Jun, 2004 01:17 am
The economy?

What does Mortimer Zuckerman-Editor of US News and World Report say in his Editorial in the June 7th, 2004 issue?

Some selected quotes:

"New jobs are being generated in large numbers, income is growing at twice the rate as last year, and the acceleration is such that we will probably see 5 percent growth in the gross domestic product"

and

"Sixty one percent of private industries surveyed have added workers. That's the highest in four years"

and

"Capital Spending now constitutes over 20 percent of the growth in GDP"

and

"Record profits are pushing corporations to start new projects. In fact, corporate profits have surged over 25% this year, on top of last year, when they exceeded 1 Trillion for the first time ever."

and


"Sales have improved in 58 of the 60 scoreboard industries, with the first back to back quarters of double digit revenue growth in years."

and

"Household wealth has passed the 45 Trillion mark, a new peak, surpassing the previous high of early 2000.

and

"The productivity boom, meanwhile, has made it possible to keep inflation under 2 percent, saving economists billions"
0 Replies
 
septembri
 
  1  
Reply Thu 3 Jun, 2004 01:24 am
Paul Krugman's essay would be much more depressing if it were not for the fact that the huge rise in GDP laid out by Zuckerman means that there is much much more money out there to be taxed. As was discovered paradoxically in both the Kennedy Administration and the Reagan Administration, when taxes are cut, more tax total is paid in because the tax cut stimulates business which creates much more wealth to be taxed which then makes up for more money than the original tax cut.
0 Replies
 
Thomas
 
  1  
Reply Thu 3 Jun, 2004 02:41 am
septembri wrote:
As was discovered paradoxically in both the Kennedy Administration and the Reagan Administration, when taxes are cut, more tax total is paid in because the tax cut stimulates business which creates much more wealth to be taxed which then makes up for more money than the original tax cut.

This is a claim I hear often, but I never see any evidence for it. Can you point me to a source that tells me what exactly were the government's tax receipts before and after the tax cuts of Kennedy and Reagan? And according to that source, does the effect persist if you account for inflation and the business cycle?

Also, note that the tax cuts of today are the tax increases of tomorrow unless they are accompanied with spending cuts. But federal spending, which had decreased under Clinton as a share of GDP, increased impressively under Bush. Someone has to pay for Bush's spending increases at some point in time, and Mr.Bush isn't telling us who it's going to be.

Actually, this is one of the strongest point for Democratic activists in this campaign: Even by conservative standards of fiscal and economic policy, Clinton delivered better results than Bush, which is a reason for conservatives to swing back to the Democrats again. I don't understand why the Kerry campaign isn't pushing this argument more agressively.
0 Replies
 
 

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