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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: PartyTime who wrote (43997)	10/8/2000 6:46:00 PM
From: briskit	Respond to of 769667

Agreed about the national debt. If I recall this is the reason Clinton shut down the federal government. The contract with America (7 out of 10 elements now signed into law by Clinton) had that as the major reason the revolution of 94 first turned both houses over to the conservatives. Congress and the public provided the initial fiscal leadership in this regard, and Clinton (and it seems now Democrats in general, though not liberals) later came on board. This strategy of trying to do one thing, then following the public in a different direction and abandoning liberals has been dubbed "triangulation" in the popular press. Reducing the overall level of taxation while providing responsible benefits will not bust the deficit. Massive spending increases will. I think the math is important to get right. Then argue the politics you prefer. I do not see this election as a referendum on democrats in general, as democrats seem to do. I think that is the reason Clinton and Gore are defended or attacked so vigorously. Just keep this about ideas.

To: PartyTime who wrote (43997)	10/8/2000 6:51:54 PM
From: American Spirit	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769667

It was Rubin who deserves much of the credit for the debt pay-off. He convinced Clinton. That little man is a giant. Bottomline, if the government can pay off the debt then we the people don't have to pay the interest. If we borrow more (which is what the tax cut would be) it's like going on margin. Fun for awhile but risky.

To: PartyTime who wrote (43997)	10/8/2000 7:30:07 PM
From: kvkkc1	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

The national debt was around $4 trillion when slick willy entered office. Now it stands around $5.6 trillion. If that's a reduction, you must have been educated by union teachers.knc

To: PartyTime who wrote (43997)	10/8/2000 7:41:22 PM
From: briskit	Respond to of 769667

PartyTime, not to worry. We knew what you meant. The budget deficit has been addressed, thanks to the fight by the 94 Congress, which of course receives no thanks.

To: PartyTime who wrote (43997)	10/9/2000 2:01:32 AM
From: Neocon	Respond to of 769667

Since debt has mounted over Clinton's tenure, what you fellows are saying makes little sense: National Debt Clock stops, despite trillions of dollars of red ink Some found clock's change of direction confusing September 7, 2000 Web posted at: 8:39 p.m. EDT (0039 GMT) cnn.com NEW YORK -- The plug was pulled on the National Debt Clock, which has kept track of the federal government's red ink since the electronic billboard near Times Square was erected in 1989. In its final moments Thursday, the sign read: "Our national debt: $5,676,989,904,887. Your family share: $73,733." New York real estate developer Seymour Durst invented and bankrolled the clock to call attention to the then sky-rocketing national debt. He died in 1995. "My father's purpose in putting it up was to show the increase in the debt and to get people aware of the size of the debt and how it was growing," said his son Douglas Durst. "And the clock certainly was helpful in accomplishing that." The 11-by-26-foot clock was covered with a red, white and blue curtain after it quit ticking. The younger Durst was skeptical the clock would remain covered for long. "We'll have it ready in case things start turning around --which I'm sure they will," Durst said. "The politicians will do what they have always done and start spending more than we can afford." Debt rose $13,000 per second When it first was plugged in, the odometer-style clock whirred furiously as the national debt rose by $13,000 a second. Often the last few digits increased so fast they were just a blur. And at one point in the mid-1990s, the debt was rising so fast the clock's computer crashed. But the clock, which calculated the second-by-second increase in the debt based on data from the U.S. Treasury, began doing a strange thing this year. Rather than cranking higher, it started ticking in the opposite direction, shaving off roughly $30 a second at last count, with a newly frugal Washington to thank. Much to the bewilderment of passers-by, the clock began ticking down shortly after the government -- flush with surplus funds from America's decade-long economic boom -- announced in August 1999 it would start paying off its debts. The government has paid off roughly $100 billion of the national debt so far this year. Ticking down sending wrong message "I was waiting for a friend, and that was the first thing I was going to ask him -- why is the clock going down?," said Glen Allen, who often spends his lunch hour near the corner of 42nd Street and Sixth Avenue at the entrance to Bryant Park. "It's great that it's going down, but what does it really mean? I don't know. If it turns in the opposite direction, I would have no way of knowing what caused it," Allen said. Durst said that kind of confusion was far from his father's wish to inform the public on the ballooning debt. "I think it's sending the wrong message at this point," he said. Some prominent Wall Streeters agreed. "When the public debt was rising at the rate it was a decade ago, it was a great idea. But now it just becomes a basis for complacency," said Lou Crandall, who follows Treasury financing at the Wall Street research firm Wrightson & Associates. Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore has outlined a plan that he says would eliminate the debt by 2012. Senior economic advisers to Texas Governor and Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush agree with the principle of paying down the debt but have not committed to a specific date for eliminating it.