Democrat or Republican?

darth tang

Active Member
Cut the defense budget.. . . . .cut some more. . . = $$$

Explain how cutting the government's spending stimulates a private owned economy in this country. If anything, cutting defense means less military jobs and less military contracts to private manufacturing companies.
So once again, how did this boost the economy? Cutting Government spending and an economic boom don't seem to go hand in hand to me. It just means the government isn't spending as much money as before. Someone please explain how it stimilates the economy, please.
 

farmboy

Active Member
More tax dollars freed up from military spending means more goverment subsidies for private sector. Just one example-Planes and bombs are expensive compared to helping the constituency.
 
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osufarker

Guest
Originally Posted by Darth Tang
Would someone please elaborate on Clinton's Policy he got passed or enacted that stimulated the Economy and caused it to boom? I hear this claim all the time, but no one has ever elaborated on why it was his doing............................
Clinton decided early in his term that debt reduction, rather than tax cuts, was the best way to promote economic growth.
NAFTA
Expansion of WTO
Balancing of the federal budget and creating a surplus, these changes help lead to lower long-term interest rates, because the government is borrowing less. The lower interest rates then stimulate more investment and therefore growth in the private sector.
Some policy, such as the expansion of the earned income tax credit, increased money for working families to boost the economy.
There are many other factors, many not of Clinton's doing that caused the economic boom, but his policy certainly helped. More than I can say for the current president.
 

darth tang

Active Member
*****888More tax dollars freed up from military spending means more goverment subsidies for private sector. Just one example-Planes and bombs are expensive compared to helping the constituency.***********88
And what constituients received this extra money? The big corporations. Walmart alone received almost 1 billion dollars in subsidies from our government in the 90's. Why? How is this different from a tax cut for the "rich"? If anything our government under Clinton handed out more money to Large corporation than Bush's tax cuts have...................But the republican's are for big business and the dems are for the small business and poor................
 

darth tang

Active Member
The lower interest rates then stimulate more investment and therefore growth in the private sector.
The interests rates have stayed low. In fact if you look at mortgages today the interest rate on them have been lower than ever, even during Clinton's reign. Now, is this a Direct result of Clintons work or George Bush's work? If you disregard the view that economic policy doesn't take effect till the next term, then you have to credit Bush. You also can't claim Bush's economic policy sucks as this is one of your standing points for making a good economy. If you feel it takes effect after their term then you have to Credit Clinton. Then you can't attack Bush's economic policy till after he is out of office as we won't see the net results till then.
Further more, Bush took the earned income tax credit and increased it further than where Clinton had. He also increased the Child credit tax more than Clinton, thus giving MIDDLE CLASS families more money as well.
In example, due to child credit tax my girlfriend received almost 7,000 dollars in tax returns. Far more than any previous year under any other president. Now tell me who is giving middle class families more money back?
 

jcarroll

Member
Republican all the way...I think a lot of the Democratic party are part of it because they think it's "cool" since most of Hollywood claims to be a part of it. I think it's great how Howard Dean is being such a great "portrayal" of the party right now, if I were a Democrat I would be embarrassed by his comments! What's up with that guy? No affection from his mom when he was a kid? :thinking:
 

jer4916

Active Member
To whom asked what my degree's are in
Bach in Theology,
Masters/Doctorate in Divinity.
Working on my DMIN (Doctorate of the Ministry.)
 
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osufarker

Guest
Originally Posted by Darth Tang
The interests rates have stayed low. In fact if you look at mortgages today the interest rate on them have been lower than ever, even during Clinton's reign. Now, is this a Direct result of Clintons work or George Bush's work? If you disregard the view that economic policy doesn't take effect till the next term, then you have to credit Bush. You also can't claim Bush's economic policy sucks as this is one of your standing points for making a good economy. If you feel it takes effect after their term then you have to Credit Clinton. Then you can't attack Bush's economic policy till after he is out of office as we won't see the net results till then.
Further more, Bush took the earned income tax credit and increased it further than where Clinton had. He also increased the Child credit tax more than Clinton, thus giving MIDDLE CLASS families more money as well.
In example, due to child credit tax my girlfriend received almost 7,000 dollars in tax returns. Far more than any previous year under any other president. Now tell me who is giving middle class families more money back?
Lower interest rates have helped, but can't make up for the staggering deficit and the devaluation of the dollar (especially against the Euro) under Bush. Bush's tax cuts may look good on the surface, but in reality it shifted all the economic burden to the states. That is why you have seen increasing state and local taxes and decreasing services. Many states are in fact nearly bankrupt.
Balancing the budget should be the priority of any president IMO, and that is something the republican party has been unable/unwilling to acomplish in the past 20 years.
 

darth tang

Active Member
Lower interest rates have helped, but can't make up for the staggering deficit and the devaluation of the dollar (especially against the Euro) under Bush.
Sure, comparatively, but you also have to look at what it costs the Europeans buy goods. Gasoline for example. The cheapest it is in Europe is in Spain. It runs a little over .80 per liter. Multiply by 3.75 roughly, this translates into an even 3 euro's per gallon. Now do the Euro to dollar change over and it is roughly 4.50-5.00 dollars a gallon for gas. I believe our market is a lot better comparatively. Sure dollar for dollar our money is less than theirs at the moment, but it also costs a lot more in Europe.
Bush's tax cuts may look good on the surface, but in reality it shifted all the economic burden to the states. That is why you have seen increasing state and local taxes and decreasing services. Many states are in fact nearly bankrupt.
None of the states that have a huge deficit got that way after 2001. The majority of state deficits have been there since the 90's. Look it up. If the state is spendinmg more money than it has, that isn't the President's fault. It is the leadership of that state's fault. Case in point of bad spending. My City/State in New Mexico spent 30,000 dollars on three pots that sit in the median of our freeway.....Money could have gone somewhere else. Who the hell spends that much on freeway scenery?
Balancing the budget should be the priority of any president IMO, and that is something the republican party has been unable/unwilling to acomplish in the past 20 years.
I agree the budget should be balanced. However, I can not concede it is only the fault of Republicans. It is the fault of both parties. I will interject with this though. How many U.S. Citizens are in debt due to spending to much Credit? The majority of Americans themselves have a deficit and some of them can't seem to balance that little bit of finance. Living on Credit is a way of life for this country, so why should our government be different from it's citizens? Our government is suppossed to reflect our citizens and in this instance I think it does exactly.
 

darth tang

Active Member
There has been strong evidence since Clinton's term however, that suggests the "balanced Budget" wasn't so. JUst a lot of doctoring to the numbers to make it appear so, even so much as to show a supposed surplus.
But then again, I have a hard time believing alot of what any politician says to be true anymore.
 

farmboy

Active Member
True - It seems like both sides of the aisle spend an unreal amount of money. They just spend it on different things.
 

darth tang

Active Member
Take a gander at this. It gives credit for neither party..............
The Cato Institute was founded in 1977 by Edward H. Crane. It is a non-profit public policy research foundation headquartered in Washington, D.C.
http://www.cato.org/dailys/10-08-98.html
October 8, 1998
No, Bill Clinton Didn't Balance the Budget
by Stephen Moore
Stephen Moore is director of fiscal policy studies at the Cato Institute.
Let us establish one point definitively: Bill Clinton didn't balance the budget. Yes, he was there when it happened. But the record shows that was about the extent of his contribution.
Many in the media have flubbed this story. The New York Times on October 1st said, "Clinton balances the budget." Others have praised George Bush. Political analyst Bill Schneider declared on CNN that Bush is one of "the real heroes" for his willingness to raise taxes -- and never mind read my lips. (Once upon a time, lying was something that was considered wrong in Washington, but under the last two presidents our standards have dropped.) In any case, crediting George Bush for the end of the deficit requires some nifty logical somersaults, since the deficit hit its Mount Everest peak of $290 billion in St. George's last year in office.
And 1993 -- the year of the giant Clinton tax hike -- was not the turning point in the deficit wars, either. In fact, in 1995, two years after that tax hike, the budget baseline submitted by the president's own Office of Management and Budget and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicted $200 billion deficits for as far as the eye could see. The figure shows the Clinton deficit baseline. What changed this bleak outlook?
Newt Gingrich and company -- for all their faults -- have received virtually no credit for balancing the budget. Yet today's surplus is, in part, a byproduct of the GOP's single-minded crusade to end 30 years of red ink. Arguably, Gingrich's finest hour as Speaker came in March 1995 when he rallied the entire Republican House caucus behind the idea of eliminating the deficit within seven years.

[hr]
We have a balanced budget today that is mostly a result of 1) an exceptionally strong economy that is creating gobs of new tax revenues and 2) a shrinking military budget. Social spending is still soaring and now costs more than $1 trillion.

[hr]
Skeptics said it could not be done in seven years. The GOP did it in four.
Now let us contrast this with the Clinton fiscal record. Recall that it was the Clinton White House that fought Republicans every inch of the way in balancing the budget in 1995. When Republicans proposed their own balanced-budget plan, the White House waged a shameless Mediscare campaign to torpedo the plan -- a campaign that the Washington Post slammed as "pure demagoguery." It was Bill Clinton who, during the big budget fight in 1995, had to submit not one, not two, but five budgets until he begrudgingly matched the GOP's balanced-budget plan. In fact, during the height of the budget wars in the summer of 1995, the Clinton administration admitted that "balancing the budget is not one of our top priorities."
And lest we forget, it was Bill Clinton and his wife who tried to engineer a federal takeover of the health care system -- a plan that would have sent the government's finances into the stratosphere. Tom Delay was right: for Clinton to take credit for the balanced budget is like Chicago Cubs pitcher Steve Trachsel taking credit for delivering the pitch to Mark McGuire that he hit out of the park for his 62nd home run.
 

darth tang

Active Member
The figure shows that the actual cumulative budget deficit from 1994 to 1998 was almost $600 billion below the Clintonomics baseline. Part of the explanation for the balanced budget is that Republicans in Congress had the common sense to reject the most reckless features of Clintonomics. Just this year, Bill Clinton's budget proposed more than $100 billion in new social spending -- proposals that were mostly tossed overboard. It's funny, but back in January the White House didn't seem too concerned about saving the surplus for "shoring up Social Security."
Now for the bad news for GOP partisans. The federal budget has not been balanced by any Republican spending reductions. Uncle Sam now spends $150 billion more than in 1995. Over the past 10 years, the defense budget, adjusted for inflation, has been cut $100 billion, but domestic spending has risen by $300 billion.
We have a balanced budget today that is mostly a result of 1) an exceptionally strong economy that is creating gobs of new tax revenues and 2) a shrinking military budget. Social spending is still soaring and now costs more than $1 trillion. Is this the kind of balanced budget that fiscal conservatives want? A budget with no deficit, but that funds the biggest government ever?
So the budget is balanced, but now comes the harder part: cutting the budget. Bill Clinton has laid down a marker in the political debate with his "save Social Security first," gambit. That theme should be turned against him and his government expansionist agenda. Congress should respond: No new government programs until we have fixed Social Security. This means no IMF bailouts. No new day care subsidies. No extending Medicare coverage to 55-year-olds. (Honestly, if Clinton has his way, it won't be long till teenagers are eligible for Medicare.)
The budget surpluses over the next five years could easily exceed $500 billion. Leaving all of that extra money lying around within the grasp of vote-buying politicians is an invitation to financial mischief. If Congress and the president use the surpluses to fund a new spending spree, we may find that surpluses are more a curse than a blessing.
Who Really Balanced the Budget
Federal Deficits (Billions $)
Clinton Baseline* Actual
1994 $203 $203
1995 175 164
1996 205 107
1997 210 22
1998 210 +60
* Congressional Budget Office forecast, April 1995.
 

stone

Member
This type of topic has messed up so many message boards. I know, I know I dont have to read it. I just think any one who starts threads like this on a fish, car, computer fourm justs wants to start trouble. Look we all have SALT WATER FISH TANKS and computers life cant be that bad!! What I hate about theses threads and I have seen to many to count on the diffrent message fourms I have visited over the years is No one EVER changes anyones mind. So what does that tell me? People just do it for there own kicks. How the HELL are you going to change someones mind on a message board?
Mike
 
hey! does anybody really care what party, color, creed, you are in this country when everything is hitting the fan and getting spread out in a senseless fashion?? i think not. just boil it down to "good people, bad people". "are you here to help, or are you part of the problem..??" :thinking: :thinking: hmmhhmmm :happyfish
 

jer4916

Active Member
Originally Posted by chainsaw5vent
hey! does anybody really care what party, color, creed, you are in this country when everything is hitting the fan and getting spread out in a senseless fashion?? i think not. just boil it down to "good people, bad people". "are you here to help, or are you part of the problem..??" :thinking: :thinking: hmmhhmmm :happyfish

Just because some of us arn't wanting to pay taxes for things such as social security, does not mean were part of the problem, the problem is deadbeats and moochers. No one should be forced to help anyone.
 

darth tang

Active Member
This type of topic has messed up so many message boards. I know, I know I dont have to read it. I just think any one who starts threads like this on a fish, car, computer fourm justs wants to start trouble.
Actually I am very impressed with the way the majority that are and have posted in this thread have conducted themselves. You are right, these threads can get ugly. But I haven't seen any in this one yet. Just an open discussion about the topic in a civilized manor. The goal really isn't to change anyone's mind (atleast on my part), but to gather an understanding of why a person views that way and to learn to respect the view, even if you do not agree. Also to share your own point of view and teach people why you see things the way you do.
 

creative

Member
Originally Posted by maeistero
screw bush. taxes? oil prices? war?
so clinton got his shoe polished, well he kept the economy booming, kept us out of needless war, kept gas prices down so employment was up (people were willing to commute).
what did bush do for you? there must be some rich people on this site i guess. give me a job, i'll do about anything to get a $10 an hour job but they don't exist around here.
when i voted my vote wasn't counted b/c i had been given an advance voting ballot for some reason. i took it in to the poll like instructed and was told my vote wouldn't count for 10 days. i figured ok, well that's the way bush engineered his last election. well the next day bush won and my vote didn't amount to a paper bag of dog excrement on your porch.
who runs this country 'cause it sure as heck isn't the people.

Spoken Like a true Democrat
 
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