Clearly I believe he will do a better job here than his opponent who's tax cuts will result in over stimulation of the economy resulting in higher interest rates as well as destroying the surpluses...........The debt should be paid off first and foremost IMO
WHAT!!!! Both sides are providing EXACTLY THE SAME AMOUNT to be budgeted for paying down debt (saving social security). Since much of the National Debt is actually outstanding obligations of governmental entitlement programs, having Gore try to implement even more of these entitlements would increase those unfunded obligations.
Up until recently all of the social security surplus that resulted from the 1986 SS Reform act has been applied to the general budget, with T-Bill IOUs through into the trust fund. THAT IS THE MAJORITY OF THE DEBT THE US OWES. It owes it to ITSELF AND ITS CITIZENS.
What the budget surplus DOES DO is to reduce the amount of US government debt held by foreigners or non-US institutions, making us less vulnerable to foreign machinations against our currency.
And every dollar of debt that the government buys back is equivalent to STIMULUS because that money is now available to be re-invested in other instruments (Eg: I'm a foreigner holding US bonds. The US govts buys them back and I now hold US dollars which I then re-invest in high grade corporate bonds or stocks).
That is the problem with liberals. You all think it is all right for the government to take 40% of our annual income. It's for our own good since if you didn't tax us so severely, we'd just spend the money on new cars and homes, and blow it all in Las Vegas. But the income tax was implemented as a WAR TAX in 1916, not as a permanent revenue generator. But hey.. now that WWI is over, why should we give up this wonderful source of money?
Owning stock in an oil company does not disqualify him from the presidency IMO
I'm sure Dick Cheney would appreciate your opinion on that. Right now he is facing having to give up $20 million in Halliburton options he was awared as as retirement package (he'll probably do what Rubin did and issue puts and calls against them as per today's article in the WSJ).
The difference is that there are CLEAR SIGNS that Occidental benefitted from its "special relationship" with Al Gore. The US govt sold Occidental a PRIME piece of federal real estate for the purpose of oil drilling, while at the same time impeding other oil companies from drilling and exploiting proven reserves in Alaska and off the coast of California, and at a time when Clinton has created national monuments out of pieces of land that contain considerable energy resources, thus depriving the nation of their use (which exacerbates our dependence on foreign energy).
Yet, at the same time, Gore has NO QUALMS about attacking Bush and Cheney for alledged connections to "Big Oil". It is this hypocrisy that really digusts me Pezz, just as his hypocrisy about smoking is nothing more than political BS.
I have no problem with someone sincerely changing their mind on a particular issue. But that change should be the result of a spiritual change, not one that derives solely to attract votes.
I don't quite know what this means.....Being a landlord of a dump is not necessarily evil
WHY ISN'T IT!!!!??? Especially when your policies have forced so many others to abide by standards that you are unwilling to meet yourself. Hell, it was the Clinton/Gore administration that forced the low flow toilet on the nation, depite the fact that we all know that they usually require two flushes to properly do the job, thus actually using MORE water, not less. There is a current stink here in DC about how Gore is unwilling to permit journalists to see their current bathrooms in the Vice-Presidential mansion located at the Naval Observatory. The rumour is that they are the old fashion style toilet, although Naval personnel (who attend to his needs) are forbidden to discuss the matter. Sounds pretty trivial, except when you think about all the aggravation we endure from having to flush twice each and every morning.
The military is bloated and needs to be scaled down in the post cold war period IMO.
Obviously you've never served in the military. And compared with China, or even N. Korea, I would not say that our military is bloated. Yeah, we have expensive toys that can kill and destroy with precision. But when it comes to taking and holding ground and kicking the other guys butt, it takes manpower and lots of it. Clinton learned the lesson of Vietnam all over again. Bombing people into submission doesn't work. If you want to decide an issue, you have to invade and completely defeat your opponent. Now we have US boys and girls over there bored out of their minds trying to keep the Kosovars and Serbs apart with no clear exit strategy. Some of my friends are currently over there that that is what they are reporting to me.
And lest we forget, it was Les Aspin, former SecDef, who under Clinton's authority, failed to provide the necessary armored quick reaction force that the commander in Somalia begged for (too expensive Aspin said). The result was over a dozen Americans dead, with one of them dragged naked and mutilated by the very people we were there to "save".
And then what about Haiti? Where's the democracy that Aristide promised? It was Clinton who initiated that operation and committed US troops there on the spur of the moment, solely to reinstate a leader with no more legitimacy than Preval.
The truth, Pezz, is that the DOD budget is quickly approaching its lowest level of % GDP since WWII. There are FAR MORE governmental agencies that are more bloated than DOD right now. The biggest problem with DOD is too many chiefs and not enough indians. The system is top-heavy with over-managemed bureaucracy and not enough shooters, sailors, and pilots.
Clinton went a long way to address these failures.
Welfare reform is not the simple issue that both sides make it out to be.
He did? Why did it take until 1995-6 for workfare to be implemented and then under Tommy Thompson's initiative, not Clinton's?? What happened to the previous 3 years? Was he too busy trying to inflict a national governmental health system upon us?
Welfare is VERY SIMPLE. If you receive something from the government and you have the physical or mental ability to provide a service of value to the people, then you will work. It is not a license to have more kids in order to increase your monthly benefits (which you're going to probably going to spend on crack instead of your kids), sit on your @ss watching "As the World Turns", or "hanging with your homies" til all hours of the night.
Why is that so complex? If you receive assistance, you give something back, if capable. It gives you self-pride, removes much of the stigma since you are getting a "hand up", not a "hand out", and teaches people to become productive citizens who contribute more than they take out.
Is he pro environment?
Hey great!!! So am I!!!! But look at which administration is currently under investigation for WITHHOLDING funding for preventive fire-fighting that many out west are saying greatly contributed to the current ecological disaster sparked by these unprecedented forest fires.
I'm all for protecting old growth forest(like the Tongass National Forest in Alaska), clean air and water, and saving the whales. But I'm also for the greatest conservationists out there, the American Hunter, who pays his special fees and taxes in order to provide a necessary and natural role in culling overpopulated herds of deer which face no other natual predator. The PETA people would rather spend $300 per deer giving them birth control shots, rather than permitting hunters to reduce the herds, and paying the government for the priviledge to do so.
And I'm for the Foresters who have managed and replanted America's forests to the extent that we now have more forested land than we had 100 years ago. Aside from the clear-cutters, who I disagree with, these companies prevent brush and small trees from providing the fuel that propels these wildfires to destroy more forest land than would occur under totally natural conditions. Remember, up until the great Yellowstone Fire back in the '80s, the Forest Service would put out ALL fires, small and large until they realized they were exacerbating the damage. It was this preventative funding that the Clinton/Gore "environmentalists" reduced from that Forest Service's budget.
So there you have it Pezz.. your great environmentalists who pander to the Land Rover driving Environmental Wackos (who are more concerned with their own status and power, than the environment), who will use whatever voodoo scientific statistics to justify more taxation and governmental regulations (thus expanding governments requirement for more money to enforce those regulations). The same ones who, had they been Republicans, would be suffering under the wrath of the environmentalists right now for causing these fires.
The same kind of people, such as NOW, who will harangue a conservative nominee for the Supreme Court at a moment's notice over accusations of harassment, while blindly turning an eye at their "hero" who's sordid history includes exposing himself, alledged rape, and getting a "hummer" from Monica while talking important political policies with congressmen. And lest you believe you can separate Tweedle Dum from Tweedle Dee, you have only to ask Maria Hsai about his knowledge of the Buddhist finance scandal, or her connections to Chinese military intelligence.
It that is the kind of president you want pezz, please move somewhere else and take him with you... <VBG> |
