Politics As Usual

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
The article, in Time via Unfogged, goes on to point out that most turban wearers in the U.S. are Sikhs, not Muslims.

And some of them are just especially careful rugby players.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
The article, in Time via Unfogged, goes on to point out that most turban wearers in the U.S. are Sikhs, not Muslims.

Ty. Do you catch any hint of bias from the author?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Ty. Do you catch any hint of bias from the author?

Hank, I appreciate the effort to toss up a softball now and then, but maybe you could work a little harder to find the strike zone.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Then it matters for the conversation whether the projections are based on tax-cut-stimulated growth or exogenous growth. Unless you want Ty to posit that increased wasteful federal spending also increased tax revenues.

I've been assuming all along we are using static scoring and that my task was to cut $400 billion from the budget. I've I'm allowed to use dynamic scoring, it just makes my job that much easier.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by sgtclub
I've been assuming all along we are using static scoring and that my task was to cut $400 billion from the budget. I've I'm allowed to use dynamic scoring, it just makes my job that much easier.

No, you're stuck with static. (But dynamic isn't going to trim anything from the budget, it's just going to reduce the deficit.)

You suggested, I thought, in an earlier post that the tax cuts were already causing increased growth, so really you had to find only $300B of cuts (or something).

Look, start with $100B by the end of the week. We can go from there.


etfs -- t.s.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Hank, I appreciate the effort to toss up a softball now and then, but maybe you could work a little harder to find the strike zone.

With you I don't need to work the corners.

[baltassoc]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
1 John Kerry, as President, won't actually fight. So, who is personally braver isn't really that big an issue. Maybe you could say his time in combat gives him some insights that would be valuable in making decisions re. the troops, but frankly that level of decision is probably below the Preident.

This argument is always leveled against Democrats. Ty's response, that he'd rather have someone who's been there, was the exact argument used by Republicans in 92 and 96 with Clinton, but to the opposite conclusion: Clinton was a "draft dodger" and so wouldn't fight.

Clinton sent troops to the Balkins and Somalia. Carter sent in troops to rescue Iran's hostages (albeit in an utter failure), not to mention the covert opperation in Southeast Asia. The troops in Vietnam were sent not by a Republican, but by Kennedy and Johnson. It was Truman who sent troops to Korea. Roosevelt lead us through WWII. Wilson got us into WWI. On the "which party is more likely to have the resolve to commit troops" question, it's a wash.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by baltassoc
This argument is always leveled against Democrats. Ty's response, that he'd rather have someone who's been there, was the exact argument used by Republicans in 92 and 96 with Clinton, but to the opposite conclusion: Clinton was a "draft dodger" and so wouldn't fight.

Clinton sent troops to the Balkins and Somalia. Carter sent in troops to rescue Iran's hostages (albeit in an utter failure), not to mention the covert opperation in Southeast Asia. The troops in Vietnam were sent not by a Republican, but by Kennedy and Johnson. It was Truman who sent troops to Korea. Roosevelt lead us through WWII. Wilson got us into WWI. On the "which party is more likely to have the resolve to commit troops" question, it's a wash.

At first i thought that, then I changed my mine.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by baltassoc
On the "which party is more likely to have the resolve to commit troops" question, it's a wash.

Especially when one of the parties campaigned in 2000 on a "no nation building"/"we are not the world's police force" platform. Go figure.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by sgtclub
That is my premise and I am very familiar with the Laffer effect, though perhaps not with those precise numbers.

The Laffer effect is as false a premise as the trickle-down effect.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
Especially when one of the parties campaigned in 2000 on a "no nation building"/"we are not the world's police force" platform. Go figure.

see 400 posts that answer this. we aren't building to build. we are rebuilding cuz we done got done tearing down. and its not a "Police action" atticus. Police address crime.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
No, you're stuck with static. (But dynamic isn't going to trim anything from the budget, it's just going to reduce the deficit.)

You suggested, I thought, in an earlier post that the tax cuts were already causing increased growth, so really you had to find only $300B of cuts (or something).

Look, start with $100B by the end of the week. We can go from there.


etfs -- t.s.

It would reduce the amount of cuts I need to come up with.
I didn't suggest that.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Bruce Bartlett, continuing to drift towards the side of good:

Like most conservatives, I thought Bill Clinton was a terrible president when he was in office. Especially after the Republicans won control of Congress in 1994, we all dreamed of the paradise that would be ours if we could just get a Republican in the White House. We could fix the budget and the tax system, rein in the bureaucracy, neuter the trade unions and trial lawyers, and do all those other things that could never be done because Democrats were always blocking the way. It was foolish to think like this, of course....

Conservatives should rethink the Clinton presidency. At least on economic policy, there is much to praise and little to criticize in terms of what was actually done (or not done) on his watch. Bringing the federal budget into surplus is obviously an achievement. After inheriting a deficit of 4.7 percent of gross domestic product in 1992, Mr. Clinton turned this into a surplus of 2.4 percent of G.D.P. in 2000 — a remarkable turnaround that can be appreciated by realizing that this year's deficit, as large as it is, will reach only 4.2 percent of G.D.P., according to the Congressional Budget Office....

More important, from a conservative point of view, Mr. Clinton achieved his surplus in large part by curtailing spending. Federal spending fell to 18.4 percent of G.D.P. in 2000 from 22.2 percent in 1992.... Mr. Clinton was also steadfast in his support for free trade. It is doubtful that anyone else could have persuaded Congress to approve the North American Free Trade Agreement. On monetary policy, he reappointed Alan Greenspan, a Republican....

By contrast, Mr. Clinton's Republican successor has caused the surplus to evaporate, raised total federal spending by 1.6 percent of G.D.P., established a new entitlement program for prescription drugs and adopted the most protectionist trade policy since Herbert Hoover. While President Bush has done other things that conservatives view more favorably, like cutting taxes, there is no getting around the reality that Mr. Clinton was better in many respects...

DeLong responds:

First, can we please please please please please please PLEASE!! stop talking about Bush's "tax cuts." There are no tax cuts. There's a tax shift--current taxpayers pay less, and future taxpayers pay more. Only by pretending that nobody has to service and amortize the growing federal debt can you talk about Bush's "tax cuts." They aren't there, any more than a $5,000 increase in your VISA limit is an increase in your income.

Second, the "Eisenhower Republican" Clintonian economic policies were only Phase I, only the first part of a Clever Plan. The Clever Plan was to restore fiscal stability, promote economic growth, create a high-investment economic recovery that would produce rapid productivity and real wage growth. Then in a decade would come Phase II: a more prosperous and confident America would have a less mean-spirited politics and be more open to the government's taking on the missions it needs to take on in order to make the twenty-first century the Second American Century.

From today's perspective, the Plan does not look so Clever.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
see 400 posts that answer this. we aren't building to build. we are rebuilding cuz we done got done tearing down. and its not a "Police action" atticus. Police address crime.

I didn't say "police action"; I was paraphrasing the GOP 2000 platform. So you're saying the cops would not have tried to stop the dropping of people into plastic shredders, etc., because these weren't crimes? Get with Bilmore on this --- I don't like fighting a two-front war. Bilmore wants us to stop rape camps, as long as it's a GOP CiC doing it.

As for building vs. rebuilding, I'm sure the third world can take comfort that our foreign urban renewal plan must be preceded by carpet bombing to ensure internal political consistency.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
I I'm sure the third world can take comfort that our foreign urban renewal plan must be preceded by carpet bombing to ensure internal political consistency.

Umm this may go back to my faulty high school education, but the ones we want to carpet bomb, we don't want them to take comfort, do we?