Politics: A new beginning

[robustpuppy]

Originally posted by Say_hello_for_me
As an aside, does anyone have issues with the "hidden" links? Don't get me wrong, I know Ty ain't linking to porn or Al Franken excerpts or nuthin, but I have a habit of not hitting links that I don't recognize instantly. Is this Cross only mine to bear?

Right click on the link, go to properties, and you'll see the name of the link. You can judge from there.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

The Republican addiction to pork and the Contract With America.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally posted by Say_hello_for_me
As an aside, does anyone have issues with the "hidden" links? Don't get me wrong, I know Ty ain't linking to porn or Al Franken excerpts or nuthin, but I have a habit of not hitting links that I don't recognize instantly. Is this Cross only mine to bear?

If you roll your mouse over the link, the address should appear on the bottom bar on internet explorer.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
I'm not sure where this equivalency comes from. Clinton decided early in his first term that he wanted to win over Wall Street, and had to balance the budget to do it. It's easy to attribute the surpluses on his watch to the booming economy, but he could have proposed big spending initiatives to devote this money, and by and large did not.

edited to add:

Take a look at this -- it's like a dispatch from another planet.

I wasn't referring to the Clinton administration specifically, but I'm not sure you want to go there. While I believe Clinton was more fiscally responsible than Bush has been thus far, he benefited from a once in a lifetime boom, plus made substantial cuts in the military/intelligence communities. And whether you want to believe it or not, the cuts have had a horrific effect on our national safety.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
I suppose you also blame the deficits during the Reagan years on the mythical Spend-thrift Democratic Congress which -- so the conservative mythos goes -- consistently spent far more than the frugal sums set forth in the budgets provided by the Great Communicator? I seem to recall club setting forth this theory way back when.

It didn't happen that way, friend -- you can look it up yourself -- or refer to the handy reference guide to budgets and spending during the Reagan years provided by a dude from the Brookings Institute and included in Al Franken's new book.

S_A_M

Not quite. I blamed it on the military build up which resulted in the fall of communism in the USSR. Well worth the cost IMHO.

[Say_hello_for_me]

Originally posted by robustpuppy
Right click on the link, go to properties, and you'll see the name of the link. You can judge from there.

That works for my settings. Thanks.

Thanks to RT also.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sgtclub
I wasn't referring to the Clinton administration specifically, but I'm not sure you want to go there. While I believe Clinton was more fiscally responsible than Bush has been thus far, he benefited from a once in a lifetime boom, plus made substantial cuts in the military/intelligence communities. And whether you want to believe it or not, the cuts have had a horrific effect on our national safety.

Please. It was the Clinton military that just rolled through Afghanistan and Iraq.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
Please. It was the Clinton military that just rolled through Afghanistan and Iraq.

Yeah, the whole 150,000-person Clinton military.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by bilmore
Yeah, the whole 150,000-person Clinton military.

That would be the Rumsfeld military you're thinking of.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by bilmore
Yeah, the whole 150,000-person Clinton military.

Exactly. Not to mention the intelligence factors you (meaning Ty) have been screaming about for the last 6 months.

This whole budget/deficit issue is something that cannot be analyzed in a vacuum. The Reagan's deficets were necessary to defeat the Soviet Union. While the left may not agree that the Soviet Union needed to be defeated, most rational Americans did and still do. Bush's deficets also need to be viewed in context. 9/11, the bust, and the corporate scandals have had a materially adverse effect on our economy, and in turn, our tax revenues. If the defecits he is running were solely the result of this, I would be supportive. But they are not, they go far beyond these events, and that is why they are disgusting.

[sgtclub]

I'm down in LA and picked up the LA Times this morning. Seems that Arnold has actually proposed some cuts, though these are predictably being viewed by the Times as falling disproportionately on the poor and disabled.

So Ty/Atticus, it seems that AS is not just kicking the issue to the legislature. I told you to wait and see. You may not agree with the cuts, but the man is actually doing something.

He also has moved to reverse the illegal immigrant driver's license bill. What I find incredible, is that the senate voted 33-0 to support him. What happened to these principled legislatures in the last few months?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sgtclub
Exactly. Not to mention the intelligence factors you (meaning Ty) have been screaming about for the last 6 months.

Perhaps one of you can explain what you're talking about. Clinton left us with the military that performed in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq. The accusation that he wanted to cut forces more -- which is what I think bilmore is saying -- is a little odd, since it's Rumsfeld who wants to cut manpower and switch to a lighter force. If Clinton was saving money, he was doing it by not investing in major new weapons systems, which is rational enough -- in air power, for example, we have no serious challenged around the world, so we don't really need a new tactical fighter.

And on intelligence factors, conservatives really ought to keep quiet. It's been widely reported that the incoming Bushies were had little time for the briefings on terrorism, and did nothing for the months leading up to 9/11. After that, they reacted, and who wouldn't? Since then, however, the Administration has trashed the intelligence community. Nothing Clinton did remotely compares.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sgtclub
So Ty/Atticus, it seems that AS is not just kicking the issue to the legislature. I told you to wait and see. You may not agree with the cuts, but the man is actually doing something.

Please compare the size of the cuts he's proposed to the size of the money he "spent" reversing the car license fee. He's still running a deficit.

He also has moved to reverse the illegal immigrant driver's license bill. What I find incredible, is that the senate voted 33-0 to support him. What happened to these principled legislatures in the last few months?

I thought it was a compromise, not a complete reversal.

edited to add:

"The overwhelming vote to repeal the law came after the measure's author met with Schwarzenegger and decided to endorse the repeal in exchange for cooperation on a new measure."

About Arnold's proposed budget cuts:

The proposals got a cool reception from Democratic legislative leaders.

"I don't see a lot of this happening,'' said Senate President Pro Tem John Burton, D-San Francisco.

John Burton cracks me up.

[The Larry Davis Experience]

No doubt about it, if a Democrat would stand up and explain how he would tax and spend less, I'd listen with interest....
But you don't need to tell us how embarrassed we should be about the budget right now. Every one of us is, as far as I can tell. What's the answer?

My answer is to hope that this "embarrassment" of which you speak will somehow come to the fore before next year's tax cut debate, just like it should have somehow manifested itself before last year's tax cut debate, or the one from the year before, or the year before that. Otherwise "embarassed" is just an empty word to protect the image of the party in power, like the words that try to paint the GOP as the guardian of fiscal sanity.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
Please compare the size of the cuts he's proposed to the size of the money he "spent" reversing the car license fee. He's still running a deficit.



I thought it was a compromise, not a complete reversal.

That's not how the Times is reporting either issue.