Does Bush Understand?

Don't any of you understand? Bush went to Yale, then to Harvard. The presumption is that he received a degree from the Harvard Business School, but I've never been able to find verification.

Regardless, the man knows business; came into existence pointing out the superiority of CEOs; has every care and concern for the ordinary people of this country, and thinks a dress code is mandatory for working in the Oval Office.

What more could anyone want? And then, of course, to present a budget which just happens to leave out a little thing like paying for a war which he desperately wants bu has no idea how much it will cost, so why factor it in.....you wonder if he understands?

Understands what? Isn't this the guy who said he doesn't have to answer questions - he's the president?

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I almost choked on my coffee yesterday morning while I was listening to NPR, Tom Delay was speaking to some breakfast group about the budget projections of a 300 Billion dollar deficit for 2003, which for those of keeping score would be a record. In his reply, which I'm sorry I have to paraphrase until I can find a link to it, he, (now this is a member of a party who agonized about deficit spending and who stood on the Capitol steps demanding a balanced budget admendment)he said something to effect of 'It's not deficits that are the problem, it's the deficit spending.'

Um.

and this is what put the Italian Roast right up my nose....
'Balanced budgets are what they had in the Soviet Union.'

I have to tell you that I slept last night rather fitfully. Now was it that I couldn't get the idea that people like this are actually running the country or was it just the coffee?

Joe Nation

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BillW:
No. Dead serious. Read about it in the WSJ. Very Happy

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"Happy days are here again"! Very Happy

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The tiny state of Massachusetts will have a budget defecit of $2 billion by July 2003.

Twisted Evil

And STill the Dems are running to the trough to fill up!

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MaMa:

The White House staff does follow a dress code. And what's even nicer, all the men manage to keep their zippers up and not engage in Clinton-type antics with young, foolish, Interns from California, under their office desks.

That's nice and that's the way it should be. Very Happy

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JoeN - You seem to be laboring under the misconception that the "poor" are a static group of people. They are not. Neither are the "rich". Some who are "poor" today will be "rich" within a year or two. Many more will no longer be poor. Likewise many who are considered "rich" today will not be in that category in a few years. People are constantly moving up and down the economic ladder. Class-warfare rhetoric that pretends otherwise ignores the facts in an effort to make "achievement" a dirty word and to raise up dependence on the government as something noble, when if anything, the opposite is true.

I find it hard to believe that anyone considers giving incentives to increase savings in this nation is bad for anyone. If we save more, banks have more to lend, the "cost" of money comes down (or stays low) and businesses have a reason to build, buy, and hire.

Bush's plan doesn't give money to anyone, it simply gives everyone another reason to save their own money.

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white house dress code:
There are four simple rules associated with my new White House Dress Code. They are as follows:

Suits: Suits are required attire for all persons possessing a penis. The following color and fabric combinations have been deemed acceptable: dark blue and wool, navy blue and wool, dark gray and wool, charcoal gray and wool, and dark brown and wool (fall only). Persons attired in suits made of silk, crushed velvet, velour, terrycloth or low-quality merino blends will be denied entry to The White House (unless bearing contributions).
Dresses: Everyone may wear dresses so long as they are women. Short dresses or mini-skirts are acceptable, providing the wearer is under 28 years of age and possesses legs objectively classifiable as "sweet." Women who are heavy-set, elderly, or otherwise aesthetically impaired are required to wear floor-length floral print gowns or housecoats.
T-Shirts: T-shirts are permitted, providing any message emblazoned on them is appropriate for the White House. Acceptable messages include alcohol, tobacco or firearm-related expressions such as "Eat the Worm," "Chuck Heston is MY President," "Absolut Spring Break," "Marlboro Race Team" or "Highway 420." Unacceptable messages are typically leftist and pinko slogans such as "Save the Whales," "Solar Power Now," "Free Mumia," or "My Parents Went to Texas, And All I Got Was This Lousy Lethal Injection."
Short Pants: Short pants are appropriate only under the following circumstances: Fahrenheit temperature exceeds 95 degrees, humidity index exceeds 115 degrees, Jenna and her sorority sisters throw a kegger on the back lawn, you have paid double the stated admission fee, or you have pledged in excess of $8000 to the RNC in the current calendar year. Once again, as is the case with women's miniskirts, only attractive and non-cellulite-riddled shorts-wearers will be granted admission, regardless of any other conditions in this category that may apply.

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'Upward mobility' in real decline, studies charge

By David R. Francis

Many older Americans were raised on Horatio Alger novels, the stories of poor boys using their wits and pluck to rise from rags to riches. Success stories still happen, of course. Nowadays girls also rise from poverty to prosperity.
But for most of the poor, the United States is no longer the land of opportunity. Economic research in the past decade has found that upward mobility has faded; most of the children of rich parents stay rich and the children of the poor remain poor. "Economists in the past have underestimated the barriers to the children of the poor getting ahead," says Samuel Bowles, an economist at the Santa Fe Institute.
Actually, it is about two or three times as difficult for children of poor families to rise above their economic circumstances as economists reckoned in the 1970s and 1980s, he adds. "There was a bit of wishful thinking about equality of opportunity."
Further, the children of rich parents very seldom slide into the bottom half of the income ladder. Most retain at least a major chunk of their inherited wealth.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0127/p21s01-coop.html

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So......how is it that the very,very poor immigrants from Eastern Europe who flooded our Country in the 19th and 20th centuries, residing primarily in the NYCity area, ended up with very well educated kids,a prospering business , a loaf of bread under each arm and.....a big "Bankroll"?

Focusing on the new immigrants to AMerica, what would you say about the mobility of the Vietnamese, who for the most part came to the USA with little or nothing and have made great economic progress, owning their homes , businesses and providing for excellent educational opportunities for their kids.

Upward mobility is THERE for those who don't mind sweating, working and saving.

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Joe Nation, you can go to - http://www.npr.org/ and review all NPR programing.

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I'm glad to hear all the zippers are up in Washington. I'm really certain that there are no paiges or interns getting involved with any of our leaders and/or legislators. I don't believe that for a second.

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Lightwizard
Now that explains it. They are sexually repressed.

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Or sexually convoluted. Freud would have a field day in Washington. Jung would throw up his hands and depart.

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Here;s to the Little People
After the gulf war the first President Bush insisted there was no recession. By the numbers there wasn;t. But voters smelled trouble

Feb. 10 issue ; Most Americans could be forgiven some confusion during the State of the Union address when the president said solemnly, as though he were reciting a key section of the Constitution, ;I ask you to end the unfair double taxation of dividends;
GIVEN THE PRICE of gas, the price of meat and the price of a teenager;s North Face jacket, the average citizen had probably not focused as closely as George W. Bush on that particular financial hardship. The linchpin of the president;s so-called economic-stimulus package has been ditching taxes on corporate dividends. By all statistical measures this is a gift to the affluent, and it;s generally agreed in Washington that it;s a nonstarter from a legislative point of view. But it showed up in the big speech nevertheless, along with worthier initiatives like AIDS relief for Africa and more pressing issues like the case against Saddam Hussein.
The deficit is growing, economic growth is slowing: it;s indisputable the economy is in a mess. The investments that were once going to pay for a college education are now good for maybe three years; tuition, not four. State governments are in a crisis more severe than any we;ve ever seen. Governors are cutting essential services, health care and child care and even the length of the school year, unable to go back yet again to the overtapped well of state taxes and surcharges. If the mantra of the first Clinton campaign was ;It;s the economy, stupid; the motto of the Bush White House should be ;It;s the states; Yet the administration made cutting corporate dividends its highest economic priority.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/867512.asp

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Talk about delusional. I'd like to see some of your data on all those poor becoming rich, Tress., um how many 100's of thousands of poor would that be this year? Are more people better off today than they were two years ago or a just a few a lot better off? Are more people even employed now than two years ago?

But let's look to the future, shall we? Are you and New Haven such true believers in the trickle down theory that you would be willing to stake a steak dinner on whether the US economy will have the same or greater number of quarters of growth under the Bush Administration as was accomplished by the Clinton Administration ? We are at the same point in time, as presidential terms go, when Bill Clinton passed his economic plan without a single Republican vote. Bush doesn't need any Democratic votes to pass his plan, but how will he do? How will we do?

Let's have some red meat.
Joe Nation

The President is fond of saying he is putting some of our money back in our pockets, but I'm not talking about that $600.oo a couple, thanks very much, I'm talking about real economic growth for those who do not directly benefit from the tax cuts in the present proposals.

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I'm not getting anything back from all his tax tweeking.

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In fine print, and in a low tone, Mitch Daniels mumbled something about the jobless rate staying about the same for the coming year, as will the economy. I have a little trouble reconciling that with all the good news Bush was talking about re the economy and what would happen with his tax plan.

Money to run the government has to come from somewhere, and those deep pockets of the repub CEOs who made it big, got caught, but somehow kept all their money aren't going to be emptied for this.

A dress code is fine, as long as it isn't considered the most serious rule in the book. Does anyone remember - last year - a Karen Hughes production on "The Real West Wing?" It was on a Wednesday night, an hour immediately preceding the "West Wing," and was designed to show what life was really all about in Bush's WH. I think it was hosted by Tom Brokaw, and followed George around during a typical day. One of the most embarrassing things going - so bad there was no mention of it in the papers the next day. At the end, Brokaw picked up a picture of the Bush twins from a table, and said to Bush that he must be in more contact with them now. Bush looked at the picture for a minute, and said, "I guess so." But he did stress the fact that no one could step foot in the Oval Office unless he was properly attired.

I guess one of the things about Bush is that you don't have to make anything up about him - all the stories are real. He himself is a generality.

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JoeN - I don't believe I called anyone "delusional". Let's keep it civil, please. Thanks.

Are you suggesting that I'm wrong? That there is an identifiable and static group of people in this country who are "poor", have been poor forever and will always remain poor? Are you also arguing that everyone who is "rich" today will be so tomorrow? Seriously?

A kid working his way through college might qualify as "poor" by current statistical measures, despite having tremendous opportunities available to him within a few years. A kid fresh out of high school might be making a little more than minimum wage now, but could move up quickly with hard work to be earning a decent wage in a few years. And a business owner might make some bad decisions or hit some bad breaks and lose everything in the same time.

Neither "the poor" nor "the rich" are static groups. The silly thing about all of the class hatred spewing forth from the left is that it clamors to support a man or woman when they are down on their luck, then turns on them if they work hard and actually succeed in life. Somehow the individual has gone from benign to benighted, merely by profiting from his or her own hard work and sound decision making. Maybe that makes sense to some people, but it doesn't to me.

Now, on the issue of economics, I'd encourage you to read this excerpt from an exchange between Dinesh D'Souza and E.J. Dionne found on Slate.com:

Quote:

At the time, most pundits felt that after the landmark tax changes of 1981, another major effort at tax reform was never going to succeed. But Reagan knew that some Democrats, such as Bill Bradley and Dan Rostenkowski, supported a restructuring of the tax code. The Reagan administration negotiated a compromise: Republicans would agree to close loopholes if Democrats would agree to lower tax rates. And the top marginal rate, which was 70 percent when Reagan came to office and had been lowered to 50 percent in 1981, was further reduced to 28 percent.
You charge me with arguing that a mere correlation between events and Reagan's tenure proves that Reagan did all the things that happened under his watch. But my argument is hardly as simple as that. Rather, when we come across remarkable and unforeseen developments, we have to ask: Did all these things happen purely by chance? If not, what factors can be reasonably credited with producing them? Specifically, what policies helped to tame inflation after an era of double-digit price increases, to revive economic growth after the malaise of the Carter years, or to bring about the end of the Soviet empire after a period in which the Soviets seemed in the vanguard of history?
When we consider that Reagan--in complete defiance of the prevailing wisdom--predicted these outcomes, implemented policies to bring them about, and then witnessed them occur, we have to take seriously the possibility that this was not another timeserver but one of those few men who truly changed the world in which we live. By contrast, Clinton inherited a country that was already enjoying the blessings of post-Cold War peace and a rising economic tide. Sure, he deserves some credit for not screwing it up. But that is a much less impressive accomplishment than turning the country and the world around.
Nowhere do I argue, as you allege, that "what led to the economic recovery was Reagan's massive deficit." The 15-year Reagan boom was propelled by sharply lower marginal tax rates, together with other Reaganite policies of deregulation and privatization. Reagan's rhetoric as well as his policies validated the achievements of the entrepreneur rather than the social worker or government bureaucrat. Thus my book makes the case that the economic and technological surge of the 1980s was no accident. Yes, the results were a tribute to the functioning of free markets, but Reagan's policies created an environment in which markets could flourish relatively unmolested by meddlesome bureaucrats.

Reagan vs. Clinton

Now, as to the current downturn; maybe it was Clinton policies, or maybe it was other factors or a natural cycle of the economy, but you've got zero chance of pinning a downturn on Bush that started at least 6 months before Clinton left office. Given the lag-time between causation and effect in the economy, you might reasonably blame problems experienced by whatever administration follows GWB on his policies, but barring time travel, you can't logically blame him for the legacy of Clinton's watch.

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More spin, no solutions - Republican whining!

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Does Bush Understand?

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