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Posted by tgl on 2004-09-14 21:36:45 +0000

Bush cons

This deserves a new thread: [quote:0c151ab6e0="terryg"]Nevermind that Bush has failed on: national security the Iraq War the budget the economy personal liberty gay rights stem cell research [/quote:0c151ab6e0] [quote:0c151ab6e0="rladew"]National Security: Don't agree. Its nice to have the United Nations agree with us or give us sound advice, but when someone attacks the US, the US gets to react. Reaction shouldn't be rash or overly cruel or violent, but it should ultimately be the responsibility of our commander in chief, and I feel decisions in this matter have to be swift, decisive and completely confident.[/quote:0c151ab6e0] The U.N. thing is not my stance. I completely agree with the action in Afghanistan. I lament that troops and supplies were held back from securing Afghanistan quickly (allowing Taliban and al-Qaeda members an escape to Pakistan), because the Administration, since Sept. 12, 2001, was planning an invasion of Iraq. Iraq is tying up 100,000+ troops and $5 billion a month, the US is less able to respond to threats in other areas of the globe. Specifically, North Korea, Iran, and the loose nukes in Russia. We've also made it more difficult for us to negotiate for safeguards on Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. [quote:0c151ab6e0="rladew"] Iraq: Don't Agree the insurgents have made this a mess, but WMD or no Sadaam was a menace and his troops would go into villagers homes, rape their women while the rest of the families were forced to watch. I bet those Iraqi athletes at the olympics were pretty psyched to have a chance at a democracy instead of a dictatorship[/quote:0c151ab6e0] I'll give the rational for invading Iraq a pass. A rational person may agree that based on the intelligence, Saddam posed an imminent threat. (I disagree on the threat level, the intelligence used to derive the threat level, and the response). However, the planning for the war and the subsequent implementation of it has been disasterous. I might be willing to give Bush a pass on this too, if he'd own up to the mistakes and get rid of the people responsible for commiting them (mostly Rumsfeld and his cabal in charge at the Pentagon). Any rational war planner (and there where plenty giving the Admin. advice, yet it was mostly rejected) realized we needed more troops on the ground to deal with insurgents, yet, we went in with a wholely inadequate force. I blame the insurgents for the deaths of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians right now, I blame the Adminstration for creating the quagmire we now face. Do not plead the serving humanity line in Iraq, there are plenty of atrocities happening under brutal dictatorships _now_ and the U.S. isn't amassing an invasion force to deal with. Somali is the first to come to mind. [quote:0c151ab6e0="rladew"]the economy: disagree. Introduction of personal savings accounts, reducing taxes to stimulate the economy, lowes tintrest rate we've had in a long time are all good things and the economy will improve because of these factors (probably in time for Kerry to assume ownership of them if he is elected..)[/quote:0c151ab6e0] While the short term benefits of tax cuts has boosted consumer spending, etc. we're facing monumental budget deficits and a worsening national debt. Cheney may think that's OK, I don't. The short term good isn't enough to make up for the long term bad that we are waltzing right into. [quote:0c151ab6e0="rladew"]personal liberty: Is this a reference to the PATRIOT act? if so , it should be under National Security. I don't agree with this BTW[/quote:0c151ab6e0] The Bush Administration has no regard for the Geneva Conventions, and is willing to jail U.S. citizens indefinitely without criminal charges. That's personal liberty. In doing these things, the nation has not been made safer. Gay Rights: Kerry's stance is wrong, but Bush's is worse. [quote:0c151ab6e0="rladew"]Kerry's socialization of health care ( which makes me feel like mediocrity would be required and rewarded,)[/quote:0c151ab6e0] You're going to have to fill me in on how Kerry's health care plan is going to reward mediocrity. [quote:0c151ab6e0]Tort reform[/quote:0c151ab6e0] I don't have a problem with limiting rewards to reasonable amounts, I do have a problem with limiting a citizens right to seek redress through the courts. I don't know enough about Bush or Kerry on this issue.

Posted by dawnbixtler on 2004-09-14 22:40:52 +0000

1)National security. If we are attacked by Saudis living in Pakistan, should we then invade Iran? Sending the vast majoirty of our troops to Iraq instead of Afganistan dramatically hurt our chances of stopping those responsible for Sept. 11th. http://www.moveon.org/censure/caughtonvideo/ Ouch... which leads to- 2)Iraq policy: How much more secure would the Middle East be if the USA had not invaded Iraq? We created a generation of Iraqis who want to kill Americans and a place for them and other countrymen to train. We will pay the price in more terrorist attacks for sure. 3)Economy: terryg:[quote:807da04f6c]While the short term benefits of tax cuts has boosted consumer spending...[/quote:807da04f6c] rladew:[quote:807da04f6c]...reducing taxes to stimulate the economy...[/quote:807da04f6c] Show me any time in our nation's history, when cutting taxes has stimulated the economy! This is greatest misconception of 20th century fiscal policy. In all of the economics classes I have taken including EC305 Advanced Macro-Economic theory, we learned, in fact, that generally the opposite is true. Paradoxically tax rebates (like the $300 we got three years ago) do seem to work, but Bush used less than 10% of his "tax relief for America's workers" to do so. 4)Personal Liberties: Well, it'd be tough to support the Patriot Act if you were thrown in jail for wearing a "Give peace a chance" T-shirt, then raped in jail and given AIDS. As for world wide civil liberties, the spread of torture as a legitimate and standard device troubles me. We may not be able to undo this one, as we started it, but removing Bush and Rumsfeld would help. 5)Healthcare: Why would our health care get worse and "reward mediocrity" when Canada's got better when socialized? I don't see that much of a difference between the two countries...

Posted by tgl on 2004-09-14 23:46:33 +0000

[quote:beaf8bed4d="dawnbixtler"]This is greatest misconception of 20th century fiscal policy. In all of the economics classes I have taken including EC305 Advanced Macro-Economic theory, we learned, in fact, that generally the opposite is true. Paradoxically tax rebates (like the $300 we got three years ago) do seem to work, but Bush used less than 10% of his "tax relief for America's workers" to do so.[/quote:beaf8bed4d] You're gonna have to fill me in on how tax cuts do not spur long-term economic growth. It's evident that increased consumer spending can create an uptick for the economy in the short term. What's the mechanism that makes tax cuts hurt the economy in the long term? I'm looking through my records, trying to find the $300 "rebate", b/c I don't think it was a "rebate".

Posted by tgl on 2004-09-14 23:54:59 +0000

[url]http://www.detnews.com/2001/politics/0107/26/-254330.htm[/url] It wasn't a rebate, or a tax cut, but an advance on my 2001 tax refund (if any). Whoa be those who didn't have a refund due them when filing their 2001 taxes, b/c you owed that $300 back.

Posted by dawnbixtler on 2004-09-15 00:34:11 +0000

I thought were NOT making people NOT prove things? [quote:449029421f]You're gonna have to fill me in on how tax cuts do not spur long-term economic growth.[/quote:449029421f] Hypocrites, all of you! Because the goverment (almost) never saves money. If the tax dollar completely left the economy completely (ie. government purchases of overseas oil) then yes. But not only is this rare, this is logistically only a part of the defense budget, which tax cutters seem to like to spend a lot of money on. I will look at "A Second Course in Macro-Economics," when I get home, but I know it is true. Tax rebates "like" the one we got, do work. But you are correct, it was a loan against your next years taxes.

Posted by tgl on 2004-09-15 02:01:49 +0000

OK then, why do tax cuts hurt the economy in the long run?...but thanks anyway.

Posted by dawnbixtler on 2004-09-15 19:57:03 +0000

So it's like this: If we take a given supply and demand curve, meaning that there is no shift in supply to demand from attitude or speculation (terrorist attack=shift down, Red Sox winning the World Series=shift up), plus we take a given level of deficit (call it $400 billion) then a tax cut itself does not stimulate the economy, because the given money supply is the same. If we make a tax cut (say $100 bil.), but keep government spending the same = increase the deficit to $500 bil. then we have increased the money supply, and this WOULD help economic growth. But it is not the tax cut that does this. We could leave the tax rates the same and just increase Gov spending by that same $100 bil. Now, the reason tax cuts generally hurt the economy (with a fixed deficit) was clearly shown in the 80's and in the past two years. When roughly 20% of the tax cuts go to the "uber rich", people in the top 1% income bracket (making over $1.3 mil a year) they do not spend AS MUCH of their extra money. Yet those who make $30,000 practically spend it all. Numerically, a uber rich person making $2 mil. a year gets a 2% tax reduction, $40 grand, but they are already spending as much money as they want or sometimes can, let alone the fact that most of these people also own 10 mil. in stocks, a house in Nantucket, etc. Yet the "paycheck to paycheck" person who gets 2% tax reduction, $600 (in practice it is actually less percent-wise than the uber rich reduction, ie. the 2001 tax cut, but for simplicity's sake...), they will spend this $600 almost without knowing it. So a large portion of 20% of our original tax cut doesn't go back into the economy, and very little "trickles down." Very quickly, the reason a true rebate works, and I don't fully understand this, is that for every dollar put into the economy, we actually get more like $1.1 in growth, because the dollar gets spent more than once. (There is a sample Taylor Series expansion of 1.0 + .05 +.0025 + .000125 + etc... that gives you theta, the multiplier, in my Macro-econ book) Typically, but not always, this is higher than the rate of interest, so the interest that government would make on a bond or paying back the deficit is lower than the return for giving money back. Plus the fact that it can be a flat rebate, say everyone gets $300, poor, middle class or uber rich... Interest rate reduction will spur economic growth, true, because it promotes less savings, or even the reduction in savings. There. Now prove to me Rove was not behind the Swift Boat veterans!

Posted by dawnbixtler on 2004-09-15 21:21:44 +0000

No response....

Posted by tgl on 2004-09-16 13:58:09 +0000

Still thinking...

Posted by rladew on 2004-09-16 14:23:38 +0000

I think this one is too much for my little pea brain: you guys have lost me.

Posted by tgl on 2004-09-16 15:06:01 +0000

It's a recognition that Government spending is a key driver in the economy. It assumes that with a reduction in revenue, there is a related reduction in expenditures (not true for this Admin., though). Less government spending, less economic growth. More government spending, more economic growth. A mechanism for economic growth is government spending. Dawn goes on to say that the money from the tax cut left in private hands does not give the same amount of boost to the economy as it would have in public hands. Since the not all of the money kept in private hands get spent. If you want to spend $100 billion dollars to stimulate the economy, reducing taxes by that amount does not gaurantee that level of spending by private hands.

Posted by rladew on 2004-09-16 15:42:49 +0000

With all due respect, I guess Im saying that the more I read any posts (mine, yours, Dawn's) in these Politik forums that have detailed explanations, three sentences or so into reading these, my mind starts tuning out and it becomes a lot of BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH. I think we are spinning our wheels...

Posted by tgl on 2004-09-16 15:53:43 +0000

I, for one, appreciated Dawn's post on tax cuts and economic stimulus. I suspected that tax cuts aren't a panacea for economic growth, but I didn't have any economic reasoning for this. With all due respect, if we can't hold a detailed discussion of these issues... who are we joking? It's the "You're wrong!", "No, you're wrong!" that sounds like wheel spinning.

Posted by dawnbixtler on 2004-09-16 20:59:19 +0000

Then let's not use tax cuts as pro or con for Bush. [quote:3a384988b0]With all due respect, I guess Im saying that the more I read any posts (mine, yours, Dawn's) in these Politik forums that have detailed explanations, three sentences or so into reading these, my mind starts tuning out and it becomes a lot of BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH. [/quote:3a384988b0] With all due respect, this is exactly why Bush needs to go. Someone says something they don't understand, and they say blah, blah, blah, or its "fuzzy math." It doesn't make it any less true. The blah, blah, blah response keeps the public in that gray cloud that the GOP wants, unwilling to actually discuss issues. Then they give tax cuts to the rich and continue to destroy our economy. More than the cold hearted lying, this is the true crime of the GOP. Sad in the truest sense of the word.

Posted by dawnbixtler on 2004-09-18 05:31:41 +0000

"Iraq War" This is also clearly a con for Bush, as the Bush Administration itself has given a very grim picture of Iraq in the next 2 years. Good article in the NY times today. Post and WSJ should report on it tomorrow.

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Bush cons