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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: i-node who wrote (576285)	7/14/2010 1:38:22 PM
From: Alighieri	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1575734

The Bush Tax Cuts led to an unprecedented economic expansion until such time as the Democratic (Carter-Clinton-Frank-Dodd) mortgage crisis killed the economy. Unprecedented? LOL...what a hack...Clinton presided over an unprecedented expansion...bush nuked it...he went into office with a mild, short lived recession, and a budget in great shape. Then he proceeded to destroy all of it, and leave us with what Obama is having to fix today...the worst economic mess in 80 years. Take YOUR head out of your backside... Al

To: i-node who wrote (576285)	7/14/2010 1:39:08 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1575734

Conservatives Don’t Care About the Deficit Incidentally, if there’s anything that makes me want to lock every MSM political journalist in a small barn which I then light on fire* it’s the persistent refusal of the journalistic class to internalize the fact that the conservative movement in America doesn’t care about the budget deficit. It’s not that they sometimes care more about other things. Or that they care less than the should. Or that they’re hypocrites on occasion. It’s that they don’t care about it at all. Not even a little. Indeed, they’re opposed in principle to deficit reduction. The conservative movement has more record of boosting foreign aid to sub-Saharan Africa than it does to deficit reduction. Here’s a few posts (1, 2, 3) I wrote on the subject at the beginning of the year. It’s genuinely hard for me to know what would persuade people that I’m correct about this, but to recap the key points: 1) There have been two presidents who were members of the modern conservative movement, Ronald Reagan and George W Bush, and they both presided over massive increases in both present and projected deficits. 2) The major deficit reduction packages of the modern era, in 1990 and 1993, were both uniformly opposed by the conservative movement. 3) When the deficit was temporarily eliminated in the late-1990s, the mainstream conservative view was that this showed that the deficit was too low and needed to be increased via large tax cuts. 4) Senator Mitch McConnell says it’s a uniform view in his caucus that tax cuts needn’t be offset by other changes in spending. 5) The deficit reduction commission is having trouble because they think conservative politicians won’t vote for any form of tax increase. In sum, there are zero historical examples of conservatives mobilizing to make the deficit smaller. What is true is that most conservatives oppose increases in non-military spending when those increases are proposed by Democratic presidents. A minority of conservatives are more consistent opponents of increases in non-military spending. But the key element of conservative fiscal policy is that tax revenue as a percent of GDP should be made as low as possible. This isn’t a goal they pursue that stands in some kind of balance with concern about the deficit, it’s the only goal they pursue. You can like that or not, but every single journalist who writes articles about the deficit debate that doesn’t highlight the conservative movement’s deep, decades-long hostility to deficit reduction is being grossly irresponsible. * Incinerating people is morally wrong even if their articles are aggravating. yglesias.thinkprogress.org

To: i-node who wrote (576285)	7/14/2010 1:40:29 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1575734

Except that it is totally obvious to anyone who is paying attention that it simply isn't the case. The Bush Tax Cuts led to an unprecedented economic expansion until such time as the Democratic (Carter-Clinton-Frank-Dodd) mortgage crisis killed the economy. You're idiot. Nuttier than a fruitcake. In fact, you are just like Bachmann, Rand, and Angle. Seriously. Get some help before you hurt yourself.

To: i-node who wrote (576285)	7/14/2010 1:53:42 PM
From: tejek	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1575734

WHEN AN ENTIRE POLITICAL PARTY MOVES TO BIZARRO WORLD.... Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) probably didn't realize the impact his remarks would have. The right-wing Arizonan was asked on Fox News how his party would pay for $678 billion in tax cuts for the wealthy, which Republicans are currently demanding. Kyl said what he actually believed: Republicans wouldn't pay for them, and thinks it's a mistake to even try. Spending should be paid for, Kyl said, but tax cuts shouldn't. Kyl later said his bizarre views are endorsed by "most of the people in my party." As Brian Beutler discovered, that's apparently true. "That's been the majority Republican view for some time," Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told TPMDC this afternoon after the weekly GOP press conference. "That there's no evidence whatsoever that the Bush tax cuts actually diminished revenue. They increased revenue, because of the vibrancy of these tax cuts in the economy. So I think what Senator Kyl was expressing was the view of virtually every Republican on that subject." Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), considered by much of the media as a credible voice on budget issues, is singing from the same ludicrous hymnal. "When you're spending money, you're spending money that is -- it's not the same thing because it's growing the government," he told Brian. "So I tend to think that tax cuts should not have to be offset." Honestly, what's to be done when an entire political party buys a first class ticket to Bizarro World? It's one thing when right-wing blogs and Fox News hosts spout such nonsense, but how does our political system function when "virtually every Republican" believes reckless tax cuts for the wealthy that created huge deficits actually "increased revenue"? How can we have an intelligent conversation with those who use the word "vibrancy" when describing the economy in the Bush years? Republicans aren't just wrong about this; they're pathologically confused. The evidence isn't ambiguous -- Bush's tax cuts led to massive deficits, and if existing policies are left in place, those tax policies will be the single biggest factor in our budget deficits for many years to come. As far as "virtually every Republican" is concerned, the incontrovertible evidence just isn't real. They see reality, but prefer to replace it with a fantasy they find more ideologically pleasing. It makes meaningful, substantive debate quite literally impossible -- there's no foundation of reality to build upon. It's like trying to teach algebra to someone who believes arithmetic is a scam. It's also a reminder that, as conservative as Republicans have been in recent years, they're not done moving off the right-wing cliff. Just a few years ago, the Bush/Cheney Office of Management and Budget and the Bush/Cheney Council of Economic Advisers fundamentally rejected the notion that tax cuts can pay for themselves. Now, "virtually every Republican" accepts as gospel an argument even Bush's economists found to be devoid of any policy seriousness. Paul Krugman laments the Republicans' "invincible ignorance." That's as good a label as any.