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Politics : Right Wing Extremist Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ish who wrote (6547)	3/18/2001 12:08:06 PM
From: sandintoes	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 59480

To say the Democrats are incorrigible, is putting it mildly. How dare they blame this recession on Bush? He has been in office two months. He has taken over what Clinton did after eight years of sucking the country dry. This includes leaving the military in dire Straits. I don't know how Democrats can face themselves in the mirror every morning. foxnews.com Bush, Democrats Point Fingers Over Economic Troubles Friday, March 16, 2001 By Alan Fram WASHINGTON — President Bush and his Democratic rivals are increasingly dragging the slowing economy into their tax fight, dueling over who is to blame for the current downturn. As votes begin over Bush's $1.6 trillion, 10-year tax cut plan, administration officials and congressional Republicans tout it as a way to reverse a slowdown that they say began under President Clinton. Democrats fire back that the White House has helped cause the slowdown simply by talking it up and by pushing a bloated tax plan that could keep interest rates high. "No one wants to take the responsibility for a downturn, and everyone wants the potential credit for an upturn," said Marshall Wittmann, senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute in Washington. "So taxes have become a Rorschach test for how to stimulate the economy." Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other administration officials have said repeatedly that the economy is already cooling. Just Thursday, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer argued that the economy began slowing during Clinton's last months in office, and said Bush's tax cuts are the cure. "The president believes that when people know that they will have more money in their paychecks each and every pay period for the next many years, it's real world," Fleischer said. "It's a real-world sign of consumer confidence, a real way to boost the economy." Democrats counter that Bush's tax plan, crafted during the robust economic times of 1999, would do little to combat the current slowdown. Bush wrote his package when the economy was in its eighth consecutive year of growth. A long GOP primary fight seemed likely against Steve Forbes, one of his party's prime tax-cutters, and Bush needed a competing package and rationale of his own. Bush found it by arguing that it was time for "prosperity with a purpose" — using the government's flush surpluses to ease taxes and keep the economy strong. But it was not written with short-term economic stimulus in mind. Of Bush's original $1.6 trillion in cuts, just $183 million would take effect this year and $31 billion next year. Some $975 billion of it — 61 percent — would not kick in until 2009, 2010 and 2011 — after what would be Bush's second term. Bush and congressional Republicans are now talking about accelerating some of the cuts to give taxpayers a quick boost. GOP plans are still evolving, but tax cuts for 2001 are unlikely to exceed a few tens of billions of dollars — a stimulus that would be dwarfed by the $10 trillion economy. Many politicians of both parties have long believed that one way to fight a slowdown is for the government to flush money into the economy with tax cuts or higher spending. But many economists also say tax-cutting packages are usually too small and enacted too slowly to revive a stagnant economy. Since last year's campaign, Democrats have tripled the size of their tax cut alternative to $750 billion over 10 years as it has become clear that tax reduction this year is a near certainty. But they have also tried ensuring that Republican fingerprints are on the economic slowdown. This has involved accusing the administration of helping cause the downturn by talking about it so much, and of having no adequate plan to strengthen the economy. "It is a lack of leadership on the economy to move us in the right direction," said House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo. In addition, Democrats argue that since projections of huge federal surpluses remain uncertain, Bush's big tax cuts could revive budget deficits. And that threat, Democrats say, could make it harder for the Federal Reserve to keep lowering interest rates — which they say would be the best economic medicine. Besides illustrating anew that Republicans usually favor deeper tax cuts than Democrats, the battling underlines how the complexity of the economy makes it an easy weapon to wield to make almost any partisan argument — even as economic conditions change. Bush today touts his plan as the best way to keep the downturn from deepening into a recession. But back when he was running for the White House, he justified his tax cut plan by citing the economy's then-remarkable strength. He even insisted that to have an impact, the cuts must be enacted before a slowdown begins. "If delayed until a downturn begins, tax cuts would come too late to prevent a recession," he said when he announced his proposal on Dec. 1, 1999. Republicans say Bush meant that his tax cut could prevent a weak economy from sliding further, not necessarily preventing a recession. But Democrats say Bush has reversed his rationale, and liken it to his abandonment of his campaign pledge to control carbon dioxide emissions. "This president doesn't feel bound by anything he said during the campaign," said Democratic political consultant Mark Mellman. .

To: Ish who wrote (6547)	3/18/2001 12:22:40 PM
From: country bob	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 59480

Hmmm, that don't sound like much of a movie to ME! Not exactly what I'd call "action packed". Did they ever find out who killed the frog?