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Politics : Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kerry -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bearcatbob who wrote (4719)	3/1/2004 8:58:04 PM
From: Lizzie Tudor	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 81568

there have been plenty of farm bills that have gone through in my lifetime, but this Bush farm bill was 190 BILLION. Sorry this Bush looting has got to go. Were the farm bills in the 90s (when we were a prosperous nation anybody remember that?) 190 billion? NO.

To: Bearcatbob who wrote (4719)	3/2/2004 2:15:59 AM
From: Steve Dietrich	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 81568

First of all you've yet to explain how leaving the pay as you go model means SS is broke. And you failed to explain how SS is broke when the SS Trustees report says it's 100% solvent until at least 2042. How 'bout some facts to back up your rhetoric? <<Steve it is only Republicans who spent the SS money - is that right?>> And now you're creating straw men. There's nothing wrong with spending the SS surplus money. It makes a hell of a lot more sense to borrow the money from ourselves than from outside sources where we drive up interest rates by competing for capital. It's also hard to argue that the $1.8 trillion we owe SS is responsible for our $7 trillion debt. We were going to borrow that money from someone. The scandal is using SS surpluses to justify cuts in income and estate taxes and then saying the looming deficits mean SS is in trouble. And yes, only Republicans play that dishonest game. <<Tell, how would you have dealt with the recession and the economic impact of 9/11 - would you have raised taxes?>> The Fed funds rate is at a 40 year low and has been there for some time. That's more stimulative than tax cuts and deficit spending. Reagan raised taxes in '83 (denounced by Gingrich and Kemp), Bush raised them, and then Clinton raised them again. After all those tax increases we had the longest peace time boom ever. And unlike under Reagan, that boom produced ever shrinking deficits and even surpluses if you believe the CBO and OMB. Compare that to Reagan and Bush's money losing expansions. Imagine a corporation that loses more and more money during an expansion. What happens to the CEO? There's no excuse and no rationale for this uniquely Republican fiscal irresponsibility. Steve Dietrich