Democrats & Liberals: Archives

Al, this was cleverly and semi-humorously written and I enjoyed it. It is even a bit prescient to envision what the GOP will be doing in response to a Kerry win.

I will throw in one more. If Kerry wins, he will likely burn his bridges with the Green Party and Nader (if any are under construction now - remains to be seen) and the GOP can salivate over Nader coming back hard against the Dem’s in 2008.

Al:

I agree with David’s assessment about your cleverness and humour.

From your comments, I suspect you might be one of those who still thinks the economy is headed downward, despite so many of the economic indicators having improved significantly over the last year and a half. I noticed that you didn;t comment on the old Democratic complaint(jobs) but used the new and improved Democratic complaint(inflation). Is that due to the fact that the “jobless recovery” phrase hasnt panned out (jobs have improved every month for the last 8, totaling 1.1 million new jobs).

You allude that the Republicans might blame a Kerry presidency for the deficit (which, by the way, IS too large currently). But this could not be so!! Democrats have proven over the past 3 years that nothing—NOTHING—a past President does during his tenure has any negative impact on the next President. Whoops—-I forgot. That is only true for past DEMOCRATIC Presidents. Sorry I forgot about that factor.

Anyway, Al, nicely written, very creative, and as David said, even semi-humorous. You should send it to the White House—-they might want to frame it and hang it somewhere during President Bush’s second term.

joebagodunuts, don’t know if you follow the financial pages, but the economy is about to go sideways for awhile. Major insiders (CEO’s and the like) are selling equities en masse, the stock market dropped 500 points and is going to hover here and go sideways until near the end of the year according to Wall Street concensus as reported by MSNBC.

But none of that is important when one talks about the economy. The economy cannot be measured accurately and tell much about the health of the nation except in much longer time periods, years. And the future for the economy with the 10 Trillion Dollar, or more, debt we will have at the end of this GOP decade, has the Fed, the CBO, the OMB, and all manner of conservatives and liberal think tanks knowledgeable about the economy saying this is not a good picture or healthy scenario.

I thought it was dangerously clever of the GOP led Congress to jack this years deficit up over 1/2 Trillion dollars, making it easy for them to reduce it by 25 to 50% over the next four years and claim they are reducing the deficits. Clever, because even the conservative think tanks are honest enough to state that the War On Terrorism and in Iraq are not the major contributors to this 1/2 Trillion Dollar deficit.

Bush cannot and will not say, nor will the GOP Congress, that they will zero out the deficit over the next 4 years. That means the debt will continue to advance toward that 10 Trillion mark at the end of the decade. Greenspan knows what an absolutely devastating amount of debt that is and what its potential is for weakening our economy and living standards for a generation. Now, you can knock Greenspan, but, if you do, best knock Bush as well since, Bush believes in the man enough to give him another term as head of the Fed.

Ok, so we have this huge debt growing - and what does this President want to do? He wants to permanently reduce revenues which will worsen an already bad national debt problem. My 13 year old daugther can do math well enough to know that if the Debt is a problem - cutting your income will make it worse, and this from her allowance experience. It is no wonder Bush’s Texas company was on the verge of bankruptcy when he sold it.

Actually, I’m one of those few Democrats who think the government has very little control over short term (5-10 years) business cycles. I don’t blame Bush for a “jobless” recovery, I blame him for wasting the surplus on huge tax cuts to the wealthy that probably only shortened the recovery by a couple of months, and even that is debatable.

Bush is the only President in history to cut taxes in time of war. I could almost excuse it as a short term stimulus needed to offset the terrorist intentions, but as a tax cut to the wealthy it went to the worst possible place for short term stimulus. After the stock market bust and terrorist attacks, the wealthy were not in a spending mood. They probably took their windfall and invested it in the safest place possible – the newly available government bonds. And there is ample evidence that the only stimulus that has been creating many jobs over the past four years has been government spending… deficit spending.

As to moving from “jobless recovery” to “inflation” worries – that is a normal part of the business cycle and just like the Democrats take excessive advantage over the “jobless recovery”, I expect the Republicans to do the same to a Kerry administration over inflation.

In the meantime, thanks for the complements! Maybe I should do all my writing at 2am.

I’ll bite on the number one reason that Republicans should vote for Kerry, and this one isn’t tongue in cheek. If fact I’ve been selling it to every Republican I talk to:

The Presidency in 2008!

Not because Kerry will be a failure, but because a Republican loss in 2004 will provide an opening to more moderate and reasoned voices within the Republican party. After a Bush loss, John McCain becomes the heir apparent, and frankly I think he would be unbeatable today, and I don’t see any reason for that to change in four years.

If Bush wins by contrast, the neocons will be emboldened, and it’s far more likely that swing voters will abandon that cause which will be seen a little more broadly as the central doctrine of the Republican establishment.

As a Democrat myself, some might wonder whether I have mixed feelings about hoping for a Kerry victory if I think it spells his defeat four years hence. Au contraire, being a Democrat doesn’t translate into my wanting the most unreasonable and myopic folks in charge of the other party. I still believe in a multi-party system and believe it’s healthiest for intelligent voices to come to the fore on both sides of any debate. Further, since I recognize that the political center of gravity in our country has shifted considerably to the right over the last 25 years, I’d rather see a reasonable conservative at the helm, whether that’s Kerry or McCain, than the troop of ideologues we’ve got there now.

Poledancer55,
Is 55 your age?!! Is your poolboy running back to the truck and taking off?!! (He didn’t even clean out ma’ cee-ment pond!) Did you an’ Jethro give chase? (I’ll shut-up, poledancer55 might be a guy.)

AL,
That is pretty much right on the money. Given Kerry’s lack of media savvy, but what I’m seeing here too is the start of a reversal of Clintonian ethos towards conservatism, such as talk to the left do the bidding of the right wing to stay in office. THe reversal being that there has been so much neglected over the past four years domestically and within trade (and there is no Newtie or major harbinger on the hill of republican populism other than the usual suspects) he will mostly be working on a very negotiative but democraticly based platform.

Will he be fauder? I’d say the republican revolution is mostly out of juice. THe republicans have had both houses and all three branches for years and they have done very little of the “revolution’s” agenda. They have been wasteful, foolishly war-like, debt mounting, surplus spending, corporate kiss-ups. Helping those poor poor wealthy people and poor corporations to OUR money and OUR government.

With each accusation they make there must be a equal but opposite retraction. We have the goods on ‘em now it’s just a matter of using the info wisely to besmirch them at each interval given. It would help if we could get a good non extremist democratic media network together to get the truth out about conservatism and the corporatist feudalism Capitol Hill repubs support and vocally represent in America, they are dead ducks!

Okay, let me get this straight. Republicans should root for Kerry to win so we can take back the White House in 08?

I have a better idea. We win it in O4. Then we win it O8. Then we win it in 12, etcetera. To me, that sounds like better fun.

Sure, Martin. It’s all fun and games… until somebody gets their eye poked out.

Ugh. Four more years of Bush? What a disaster that would be. When he got appointed president, I shrugged and said, “How much harm could a president possibly do to this great, strong nation in only four years?” Well, now I know.

Ah, c’mon guys…

Al, that was the best chortle I’ve had on WatchBlog in awhile! Great stuff.

And, I do agree with Walker that a neo-Con Waterloo come November, turns the keys to the GOP over to McCain - the main reason he’ll not be Kerry’s VP choice.

Great thoughts!… But I doubt that the current Democratic Party or their Kerry Poster Boy could administer any of it successfully in their current condition. There is a great leadership void here. And I feel the party is too aware that they have selected the wrong man to lead at the top of the ticket. Like in the past they seem to have selected a “nominee” with no energy, drive, or original plan. Al,this is no “winner” to base your carefully crafted premise on.

Elect Kerry! There will be jobs for everyone….but everyone will be afraid to leave your house long enough to work.

Does anyone know anything about economics? Bush’s tax cuts began the recovery due to what is called a tax multiplier. This multiplier cuts both ways. With Kerry’s (undoubtedly) tax increases, there would only be an unraveling of the “fix” that has been accomplished. As for the deficit - our system of government will never fix the increases until there is more accountability by all departments. Every dept. uses up their budget every year so that they can ask for more in the upcoming year. It is the system that is flawed - and it needs such a major overhaul that nobody is courageous enough to tackle it, since every dept. would scream bloody murder if you were to (gasp) reduce their budgets! Talk to Governor Pawlenty in MN about that!

Martin,
If you’re enthusiastically on board with Wolfowitz and the neocons, then absolutely go ahead and vote Bush. I submit that there are plenty of Republicans out there grimacing who will hold their noses and vote for Bush, who if they care about the future of the Republican Party would see the wisdom in retiring this crew for the betterment of their party.

Vote for Kerry?

I can’t stand to look at him, let alone listen to him, or vote for him.

I will vote for Bush. He will win this election.

This whole discussion brings to mind a question. If all Democrats are upset about the “tax cut for the wealthy”, where in the heck is the Democrat proposal for a “tax cut for the middle class?” Haven’t heard a word about it since Bill Clinton, on election day the first time (before the polls even closed) talked about how he “might have to back off from that promised middle class tax cut” that he talked about in the campaign.

So, if you’re upset about something like that, don’t just gripe. Do something about it. I’m not wealthy like the Kerry-Heinzes, the Kennedys, and others, so I could really use a hefty tax cut.

Jerry - The Democratic proposal is to keep the “Middle Class” tax cut Bush implemented, but roll back the really big tax cut for those making over $200,000 per year. Of course that “Middle Class” tax cut is mostly illusion. Sure my taxes went down about $200 per year, but my share (and yours too) of the Deficit went up by over $3000 under Bush (1 Trillion dollar increase in the debt devided by 300 million people). Then you have to add in the trickle down effect of all the State budgets going bust and property taxes and other fees going way up, and you can see that Bush’s great tax cut was really a wealth transfer to the already wealthy.

skunkbud, where did that poledancer55 stuff come from? It was pretty humorous, although most of us had no idea what you wus talkin about. Were you having a separate conversation with yerself? You may might not know too much about politikin, but you kin make a manns belly ache!

There are apparently some Republicans who agree with Walker Willingham’s assessment that they’d “rather see a reasonable conservative at the helm, whether that’s Kerry or McCain, than the troop of ideologues we’ve got there now.” Have a look at RepublicansForKerry04.org