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Politics : Ask Michael Burke

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To: Skeeter Bug who wrote (109738)	10/28/2007 10:38:31 AM
From: Freedom Fighter	Read Replies (1) of 132070

Skeeter, When we went into the recession, IMHO there was some justifiable fear on both sides of the aisle. The stock market was taking quite a hit and then 9/11 occurred. I think every president (republican or democrat) would have cut taxes/raised spending in that scenario because that is the "generally accepted mainstream remedy" for dealing with slowdowns. They RUN DEFICITS. The only difference would have been the specific taxes they cut and the spending programs they increased. I strongly disagree with this kind of thing, but that's the reality on both sides of the aisle. Personally, I leave the war spending off the table when I look at the deficit. The war had nothing to do with the strategy for dealing with the recession. It would have happened even if the economy was booming. It's a seperate discussion (one that we've been having). The real debate on economic actions comes after the economy started recovering. Should spending have been retrained sharply and the tax decreases rolled back as soon as the economy recovered? IMHO, as soon as the economy started to recover, there should have been an all out assault on spending growth. That was the mistake Bush made. He was and still is a heavy spender. That's one reason he is so unpopular. It's not just the war. Many on the right can't stand him because he's spending more money than the worst government expanders from the left ever did. If they cut spending growth, Then the deficit would have been a lot smaller. We would probably still have a deficit because during the Bush presidency there hasn't been massive "stock options compensation" and other stock related capital gains taxes flooding the treasury like during Clinton's term, the demographics are starting to become more negative on the spending side, and he added the war spending. But it would have been a lot better. Personally I have no problem with cutting taxes that increase savings and investment (like he did) as long as they are accompanied by spending decreases. Basically, I think shrinking the government helps long term economic growth and increases freedom. But they must be accompanied by spending cuts.

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