Greenspan speaks

It's not a matter of believing, it's happening. Whatever new spending is created must be offset by cuts or new revenue sources.

If not, give me specific examples.

MM - faith-based policy refers to the Iraq war, deficit spending and homeland security. W bases his policy on "if I believe hard enough it will happen."

See welcomed as liberators, last throes, cutting taxes during time of war and spending more than you take in and allowing 75 percent of cargo that enters the USA to go unchecked for potential bombs.

Next.

I love the fact that no one can refute Greenspan's assertion that W has been a train wreck fiscally (if not for housing bubble prompted by post Sept. 11 interest rate plummet, the US economy would have been stagnant. NOw that the bubble has burst we see a loss of 4,000 jobs last month and a recession on the horizon - Like Father like son.)

I remember GOP Congressmen blasting Clinton and threatening timetables for exiting Bosnia. Clinton handled war responsibly (zero American deaths) while guiding an economy that produced 23 million jobs and led millions out of poverty.

What has Conservatism produced in the past six years other than $3 trillion to the national debt?

 

It's quite shocking when I agree with Ragu on something to do with fiscal management of government spending.

And Lamar, you're no better than the knee-jerk Bush defenders. The Dems are not nearly as wonderful as you make them sound. I might vote for them most of time, but it's more the lesser of two evils.

 

Facts don't lie:

1. Bill Clinton is the only president of the last 25 years to preside over a budget surplus.
2. Bill Clinton boosted Pell Grant limits allowing middle class families (like mine) to send their children to college - in my case a great investment, the Fed govt has made at least 5 times in tax collections off me in the past decade - smart policy. Send more kids to college, collect more in taxes b/c they make more money
3. Bill Clinton was praised this year by right wingers after the 10th anniversary of his welfare reform - getting people to work and off welfare rolls - saves money.
4. Millions of people living below the poverty level raised themselves out of that distinction during Bill Clinton's presidency.

Poverty is back on the rise, so is crime - do you think their might be a connection. Bill Clinton invested money to put cops on the streets - W has underfunded the COPS program.

I am better than knee-jerk W supporters - I use facts as the basis of my views. They have hope and faith and follow blindly.

Is it a surprise that a baby whose daddy's Saudi buddies bailed him out of failed oil operations will transfer the greatest foreign policy blunder in America's history to his successor. W has left mess after mess in his life and has taken no responsibility. He was born rich and he suckered GOP voters with his faux cowboy routine in 2000 and anti-gay rhetoric in 2004.

Don't blame me I voted for Clinton.

Wouldn't it just suck to go back to those "failed" policies? I'd take 8 more years of Clinton judgement and leadership.

Thompson? old man with no drive and flip-flopper on aborition, Libya and Osama. HAH!
Rudy? Way to work with the 9-11 commission, I know making money capitalizing on a nation's tragedy was more important. Plus, if America wants to vote for a pro-choice, gun-control candidate it will vote Democrat.
Mitt? See Flip-flop specialist?
McCai....zzzzzZZZzzz


In the end, don't trust me. Trust Greenspan. He's a Republican and even he said the war in Iraq was for oil.

 

These threads give me a headache. I don't understand spending all my time defending the goofballs in one party or the other.

Here's some non-partisan truths as I see 'em:

- Clinton benefited from a "good cycle" in the economy and he did nothing to hurt it, either. I think the whole country benefits with a Democrat as president and Republicans in Congress.

- Bush turned a potential subtle downswing in the economy and made it much worse.

- Bin Laden moved virtually undetected during the Clinton Administration. Nothing but a blip. First I remember hearing of Bin Laden and Al Queda was during the Monica scandal. Shortly after Monica broke, Clinton bombed a pharmacy saying it was an Al Queda hotbed ... it was a pharmacy.

- Bush used 9/11 as an excuse to go into Iraq.

There's no point in hating one party. Both have their crooks and imbeciles.

 

I was raised Republican (I'm independent now), but I thought Clinton was a better president than anyone else in the past 30 or 40 years.

Meanwhile, I'm thoroughly disgusted by the Bush administration, which circled the wagons almost from Day 1 and seems to think that power means everything.

I wonder what the last book is that Bush has read, other than maybe a Calvin and Hobbes anthology.

On a side note, management often seems to take its cues from government, and the workplace seems to have suffered the results. Lots of suits walking around with big sticks these days, demanding production and company loyalty but giving little back.

We really need more than two political parties in the United States. The Democrats and Republicans are so polarized now, and both parties have sold out to their corporate masters.

Meanwhile, they'll do anything to keep the Green Party or any other party from gaining ground. Just try to get your third-party candidate into a campaign debate. The freeze-out is swift and embarassing, and it hurts the public that much more.

The 2008 campaign will probably be the nastiest yet, and in crunch time it will be all about tearing down candidates instead of building consensus on the crucial issues at hand.

And there are many crucial issues at hand these days.

 

And he also bombed al-Qaeda training camps which were, in fact, al-Qaeda training camps. And he bombed them not because "Monica broke," but because al-Qaeda had bombed our embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam.

The idea that "Bin Laden moved virtually undetected during the Clinton Administration" is not the truth at all. Dick Clarke's book makes that abundantly clear. Now, Clinton's penchant for thinking with his dick put him in a bad position when it came to retaliating (because it made him look like he was pulling a "Wag the Dog") and using the military, and obviously, he didn't accomplish the ultimate goal of taking out Bin Laden. So, yes, he failed. But he put a hell of a lot more effort into it from 1998-2000 than Bush did in his first eight-plus months on the job.

Otherwise, I generally agree with you. Clinton can't get too much credit for the economy, a power-sharing situation like we had from 1995-2000 is probably the ideal, and (obviously) Bush exploited 9/11 to push for war in Iraq.

 

I didn't mean to imply the Al-Queda bombings were all just a ruse to distract us from Monica ... that's just the first time I heard of it, and of course that was the implication from the Republicans.

I just always felt the plan/policy for dealing with Al-Queda was lacking and inconsistent. Of course, it's probably not easy knowing how to deal with a guy Reagan gave arms to so he could fight off the Russians.

 

It's been that way for a long time. The Cole bombing, the first WTC bombing, the U.S. embassies abroad.

Someone hits us hard, and we promise swift and sure response -- "We will track them down, and justice will be served" -- but the counterattack gets lost in the shuffle.

It's tough being the world's only superpower, but ya gotta drop the hammer when provoked. Our problems in this area didn't begin with 9/11, and that's all too plain now.

 

I think the timing was coincidental. Bin Laden made the leap (in the intelligence community's mind) from "terrorism financier" to "terrorist mastermind" in the mid-90s, and his first attacks against U.S. interests that really caught our attention happened in 1998 ... right in the middle of the Lewinsky fiasco. (Intelligence agencies didn't realize Bin Laden had such strong ties to Ramzi Yousef and the '93 WTC attack until several years later.)