New U.S. President

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by Zeta-Flux

ewmayer, the national debt was just about doubled, in one week, by congress and senate, run by democrats.

... and not vetoed by the Republican president, even though there are enough Congressional Republicans to uphold the veto in either house of Congress!

[Note: you mean "deficit", the shortfall in one year's budget, not "debt" which is the cumulative total (over $10 trillion now) of all deficits and surpluses since the U.S. was founded.]

I just don't understand how you can blame the debt solely on Republicans.

Do you understand the presidential veto provisions of the U.S. Constitution?

One president plus one-third-plus-one of the same party in either house of Congress can stop any legislation they want, and hold hostage any provision they want until the majority of Congressmen and Senators cave in. It is possible for 35 people (president plus 34 senators) to stop legislation approved by the other 501 people in Congress, and to insist on getting what they want before approving the rest.

(BTW, don't confuse the 60 votes currently needed to stop a Senate filibuster with the 67 votes needed to override a presidential veto there.)

Your argument is along the same lines as one Ronald Reagan used (I watched him look straight into the TV camera and say it, so don't claim he didn't) in the first year of his administration to portray congressional Democrats as responsible for passing bills that contained too much spending, and say that he was going to veto them for that reason. What he chose _not_ to tell his audience (and so, fooled millions of Americans such as my mother) was that what he wanted was bills that contained even more spending, just in different areas than Democrats wanted. You can look it up -- there are versions Reagan vetoed that had less spending than the versions he signed! (And, BTW, Reagan set the all-time record for number of vetoes, both in his first year and overall.)

I've been hearing this Big Lie (that Democrats are responsible for the large federal deficits since 1980, that Democratic-desired spending counts as the only evil federal spending, but Republican spending on what they want is never referred to as in any way connected to the federal debt or deficit) from Republicans for almost three decades now, and I'm not going to let it go unchallenged any more.

I'm not accusing you, Zeta-Flux, of knowingly lying; I'm accusing you of repeating someone else's carefully-crafted, monotonously-repeated, and very-effective-so-far Big Lie.

Ronald Reagan tripled our national debt (from about $1 trillion to about $3 trillion); George H.W. Bush added as much debt (another $1 trillion) as was the entire total before Reagan took office. Clinton presided over the only surpluses we've had since then, and George W. Bush has added about as much to the federal debt as Reagan and his father combined.

Don't give me that Big Lie about which party has been spendthrift for the past three decades. It's pure propaganda (and obviously very effective!!), and publicly-available facts prove that.

On the other hand, I personally am sick of the ones we've elected. They do not represent the party of low taxes and lower spending.

Perhaps you ought to heed my repeated call to moderate Republicans to take back their party from those who value political power above all ethics and, as I've explained previously (see my posts in the New President thread, I think -- I'm looking for the one I mean so I can post a direct link - here http://mersenneforum.org/showpost.ph...&postcount=467), have since 1980 been following a conservative-think-tank strategy that reverses the traditional Republican spending conservatism but won't be honest about that.

[cheesehead]

Unfortunately, Xyzzy, that isn't indicative of the mood at some recent McCain/Palin appearances, including here in Waukesha County, Wisconsin.

"McCain booed after trying to calm anti-Obama crowd"

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081011/...n_angry_crowds

LAKEVILLE, Minn. - The anger is getting raw at Republican rallies and John McCain is acting to tamp it down. McCain was booed by his own supporters Friday when, in an abrupt switch from raising questions about Barack Obama's character, he described the Democrat as a "decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States."

A sense of grievance spilling into rage has gripped some GOP events this week as McCain supporters see his presidential campaign lag against Obama. Some in the audience are making it personal, against the Democrat. Shouts of "traitor," "terrorist," "treason," "liar," and even "off with his head" have rung from the crowd at McCain and Sarah Palin rallies, and gone unchallenged by them.

McCain changed his tone Friday when supporters at a town hall pressed him to be rougher on Obama. A voter said, "The people here in Minnesota want to see a real fight." Another said Obama would lead the U.S. into socialism. Another said he did not want his unborn child raised in a country led by Obama.

"If you want a fight, we will fight," McCain said. "But we will be respectful. I admire Sen. Obama and his accomplishments." When people booed, he cut them off.

"I don't mean that has to reduce your ferocity," he said. "I just mean to say you have to be respectful."

Presidential candidates are accustomed to raucous rallies this close to Election Day and welcome the enthusiasm. But they are also traditionally monitors of sorts from the stage. Part of their job is to leaven proceedings if tempers run ragged and to rein in an out-of-bounds comment from the crowd.

Not so much this week, at GOP rallies in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida and other states.

When a visibly angry McCain supporter in Waukesha, Wis., on Thursday told the candidate "I'm really mad" because of "socialists taking over the country," McCain stoked the sentiment. "I think I got the message," he said. "The gentleman is right." He went on to talk about Democrats in control of Congress.

On Friday, McCain rejected the bait.

"I don't trust Obama," a woman said. "I have read about him. He's an Arab."

McCain shook his head in disagreement, and said:

"No, ma'am. He's a decent, family man, a citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with (him) on fundamental issues and that's what this campaign is all about."

He had drawn boos with his comment: "I have to tell you, he is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States."

The anti-Obama taunts and jeers are noticeably louder when McCain appears with Palin, a big draw for GOP social conservatives. She accused Obama this week of "palling around with terrorists" because of his past, loose association with a 1960s radical. If less directly, McCain, too, has sought to exploit Obama's Chicago neighborhood ties to William Ayers, while trying simultaneously to steer voters' attention to his plans for the financial crisis.

The Alaska governor did not campaign with McCain on Friday, and his rally in La Crosse, Wis., earlier Friday was much more subdued than those when the two campaigned together. Still, one woman shouted "traitor" when McCain told voters Obama would raise their taxes.

Volunteers worked up chants from the crowd of "U.S.A." and "John McCain, John McCain," in an apparent attempt to drown out boos and other displays of negative energy.

The Secret Service confirmed Friday that it had investigated an episode reported in The Washington Post in which someone in Palin's crowd in Clearwater, Fla., shouted "kill him," on Monday, meaning Obama. There was "no indication that there was anything directed at Obama," Secret Service spokesman Eric Zahren told AP. "We looked into it because we always operate in an atmosphere of an abundance of caution."

Palin, at a fundraiser in Ohio on Friday, told supporters "it's not negative and it's not mean-spirited" to scrutinize Obama's iffy associations.

But Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania an author of 15 books on politics, says the vitriol has been encouraged by inflammatory words from the stage.

"Red-meat rhetoric elicits emotional responses in those already disposed by ads using words such as 'dangerous' 'dishonorable' and 'risky' to believe that the country would be endangered by election of the opposing candidate," she said.

Folks, this sort of demonizing and emotion will spur assassination attempts, should Obama be elected.

In 1960, a charismatic Democratic candidate, demonized by Republicans during the campaign, from a demographic group (Roman Catholic) never before represented in the U.S. presidency, was elected. When my algebra teacher came into the classroom shortly after lunch on November 22, 1963, to inform us that Kennedy had been shot, one thing he said with a small smile was, "They finally got the sonofabitch."

"I don't trust Obama," a woman said. "I have read about him. He's an Arab."

Perpetuating urban legends can lead to real harm.

Still, one woman shouted "traitor" when McCain told voters Obama would raise their taxes.

This is what the GOP strategy of the past 28 years has brought: running up the national debt to the point that China has the financial power to "veto" certain U.S. decisions, but portraying opposition to that course as not just harmful, but actually traitorous.

Republicans should be ashamed of their Big Lie fiscal policy since 1980. Let's fervently hope that some future history doesn't have to point to it as a principal cause of US downfall.

Remember: Author Tom Clancy portrayed, in his novel Debt of Honor, the deliberate crashing of a jumbo jet into an important building by an enemy of the United States a decade before it happened for real with multiple planes and buildings. The same novel portrayed foreign countries as using their holdings of dollars and U.S. Treasury bonds (at a far lower level than today's) as a financial weapon against the United States in order to escalate a crisis already started for other, financially-related reasons.

In a different novel (The Sum of All Fears), Clancy described details of terrorists' construction of a nuclear weapon. In an afterword of that book, he explained that he had omitted or distorted crucial details, so that the procedure he described would not work in practice.

There is no such disclaimer at the end of Debt of Honor.

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

Remember: Author Tom Clancy portrayed, in his novel Debt of Honor, the deliberate crashing of a jumbo jet into an important building by an enemy of the United States a decade before it happened for real with multiple planes and buildings.

Oops. Copyright date was 1994. Only seven years before.

[davieddy]

Paranoid or what?

[Zeta-Flux]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

This is what the GOP strategy of the past 28 years has brought: running up the national debt to the point that China has the financial power to "veto" certain U.S. decisions, but portraying opposition to that course as not just harmful, but actually traitorous.

Um...excuse me... I asked this on the other thread, but I'll ask it here again. Who has been in the majority in the senate and congress during the largest increase of that debt. While I don't deny that the GOP has done its share to raise the debt, I would argue that Republicans do not like what their elected officials have done, and those officials who supported the bailout bill will be ousted. Can the same be said of the Democrats who supported the bill?

[Zeta-Flux]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

... and not vetoed by the Republican president, even though there are enough Congressional Republicans to uphold the veto in either house of Congress!

This is irrelevant to my point. The bill was birthed by Democrats. That some republicans supported it is irrelevant to the fact that it was ratified due to the democrats. Furthermore, a *majority* of Republicans congressmen voted against it. Furthermore, a *majority* of Republican voters were against the bill, and will oust those few Republicans who voted for it.

[Note: you mean "deficit", the shortfall in one year's budget, not "debt" which is the cumulative total (over $10 trillion now) of all deficits and surpluses since the U.S. was founded.]

Yep.

Do you understand the presidential veto provisions of the U.S. Constitution?

Of course. Do you understand the role of the legislative branch?

One president plus one-third-plus-one of the same party in either house of Congress can stop any legislation they want, and hold hostage any provision they want until the majority of Congressmen and Senators cave in. It is possible for 35 people (president plus 34 senators) to stop legislation approved by the other 501 people in Congress, and to insist on getting what they want before approving the rest.

Of course. Are you trying to *blame* the people who could have stopped its initial passage? Are you blaming their constitutency, which was rabidly against the bill?

Your argument is along the same lines as one Ronald Reagan used (I watched him look straight into the TV camera and say it, so don't claim he didn't) in the first year of his administration to portray congressional Democrats as responsible for passing bills that contained too much spending, and say that he was going to veto them for that reason.

That is a ridiculous comparison on the face of it. First, I personally do not have the power to veto it. Second, I personally would (hopefully) have listened to my constituency and vetoed it. Third, while I admit the president has liability, my argument isn't about his lack of liability but that the Democratically controlled congress and senate have a larger liability for passing the bill in the first place! You can't blame it all (or even a majority of it) on the president for not vetoing. Fourth, the intentions of the president are in direct contradiction with the majority of the party. We will oust those officials who voted for the bill; will you do the same?

I've been hearing this Big Lie (that Democrats are responsible for the large federal deficits since 1980, that Democratic-desired spending counts as the only evil federal spending, but Republican spending on what they want is never referred to as in any way connected to the federal debt or deficit) from Republicans for almost three decades now, and I'm not going to let it go unchallenged any more.

That's fine. I agree with you. Democrats are not entirely responsible. They are, however, primarilyresponsible for doubling the current deficit, thereby adding about 1 trillion to the debt.

I'm not accusing you, Zeta-Flux, of knowingly lying; I'm accusing you of repeating someone else's carefully-crafted, monotonously-repeated, and very-effective-so-far Big Lie.

No, you are seriously misunderstanding me.

Ronald Reagan tripled our national debt (from about $1 trillion to about $3 trillion); George H.W. Bush added as much debt (another $1 trillion) as was the entire total before Reagan took office. Clinton presided over the only surpluses we've had since then, and George W. Bush has added about as much to the federal debt as Reagan and his father combined.

Don't give me that Big Lie about which party has been spendthrift for the past three decades. It's pure propaganda (and obviously very effective!!), and publicly-available facts prove that.

No, no, no, no, no. Congress and the Senate did those things. While the Presidents have complicity, it is the legislative branch which bears the brunt of the blame. Second, the actions of the presidents in these regards goes *against* the will of the constituency. We WANT lower spending. We are supposed to be the party of lower spending. Our leaders have lied to us, so they've lost our support, and especially in the coming months more will be outed. Can the same be said of the democrats? Have you voted someone in your party out of office for spending too much? Will you send a signal this Nov. for the huge deficit (and hence debt) increase?

Perhaps you ought to heed my repeated call to moderate Republicans to take back their party from those who value political power above all ethics and, as I've explained previously (see my posts in the New President thread, I think -- I'm looking for the one I mean so I can post a direct link - here http://mersenneforum.org/showpost.ph...&postcount=467), have since 1980 been following a conservative-think-tank strategy that reverses the traditional Republican spending conservatism but won't be honest about that.

That's exactly what I've tried to do. Unfortunately, radical anti-mormons in Iowa voted for Huckabee, thereby crushing the most qualified economist from being my candidate (even if I disagreed with him on lots of other matters, such as the war, rights of POW's, etc...). I personally cannot vote for either Obama or McCain, as both supported the deficit increase, and both do not represent my desire to get rid of deficit spending. Strangely enough, Romney (I believe) was also for the bill, and thus would have lost my vote even if he had been the nominee.

[mdettweiler]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

Easy to miss in the middle of the quote from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adler_Planetarium) was:

"The current Zeiss Mark VI projector is 40 years old and no longer supported by its manufacturer, Carl Zeiss AG."

It's mechanically complicated, and parts need repair or replacing once in a while, but can no longer be obtained from the manufacturer.

It's not so much a matter of the new one doing more than the old one (though it probably will), it's a matter of having a working one at all. Adler Planetarium (which was designated a U.S. National Historic Landmark over twenty years ago) wouldn't be requesting a new one if they were able to keep the old one going.

Oh, I see--I thought this was just an ordinary overhead presentation projector, not a big planetarium-sized one.

With that in mind, though, this begs the question: how much does this new one cost? Can the government really afford to purchase it on money that they don't have?

[Spherical Cow]

"I don't trust Obama," a woman said. "I have read about him. He's an Arab."

McCain shook his head in disagreement, and said:

"No, ma'am. He's a decent, family man, a citizen that I just happen to have
disagreements with (him) on fundamental issues and that's what this campaign is all about."

He had drawn boos with his comment: "I have to tell you, he is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States."

This was one of the brightest spots (though there's been very few of them)
of the campaign. McCain trying to head off the unreasonable anger and fear
that comes from the campaign rhetoric. I saw the entire exchange, and
McCain went on to say that he thought he (McCain) would be a better
president than Obama, but at least McCain tried to temper the anger that
seems to be out there.

My view of McCain improved significantly with that one exchange- not enough
to vote for him yet, but it sure was good to see that.

Norm

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by Zeta-Flux

Who has been in the majority in the senate and congress during the largest increase of that debt.

You forgot to ask about the presidency, which has the veto power.

=> What I'll look up, after posting this, is the correlation between party-in-power and budget deficits 1981-2008. <=

After all, I hope you'll agree, if Democrats were in power half the time, Republicans the other half, but 3/4 of the debt was incurred by budgets for which Republicans were responsible, then such an equal division of time would not be indicative of debt responsibility without consideration of who approved which deficits, right?

BTW, I'll tell you right now that the Wall Street Journal had an article, about two years ago IIRC, in which it was clearly and unmistakably shown that the budgets that Republican presidents submitted to Congress during recent history (I don't recall the specific starting year, but it was 1980 or earlier; maybe it was all post-WW2 presidents) had consistently, significantly larger deficits than those submitted by Democrats during the same period.

I'm not trying to fool anyone; I'm trying to point out facts that skillful GOP propaganda has caused many Republicans (and Democrats!) not to notice in the past three decades, and that I'm tired of being ignored and distorted.

While I don't deny that the GOP has done its share to raise the debt, I would argue that Republicans do not like what their elected officials have done, and those officials who supported the bailout bill will be ousted.

But I'm talking about what has _actually happened_ in the federal budget, not what might be on voters' minds, and not about the bailout bill in particular. If Republican voters were not responsible for electing Republican Congressmen and Presidents who did these things in the past, then who were?

The theoretical argument that Republican voters throw out Republican lawmakers if those lawmakers instituted the fiscal policy I've outlined fails because facts show that _it just hasn't happened that way_. Republican voters keep electing and re-electing more Republican lawmakers _who keep exercising the same fiscal policy I've been outlining_, even if they're not the same individual lawmakers who represented particular districts in the preceding terms. Political slogans and emotional appeals may obscure this fiscal reality, but it's true. Incumbent Republicans keep getting re-elected at about the same rate as Democratic incumbents.

My arguments about Republican fiscal policy have nothing to do with the bailout bill -- it's about what has happened from 1980 to 2008 _before_ the bailout bill.

Can the same be said of the Democrats who supported the bill?

Irrelevant, because I'm not discussing a hypothetical situation; I'm discussing _real history_, and not the bailout bill in particular.

Now, _if in the future_, Republican voters show that they not only turn out lawmakers who enact big deficits, but also do not elect other lawmakers who do the same during their own terms, then I'll congratulate those Republican voters for taking their party back to authentic fiscal conservatism. But, you'll notice, I could have said the same thing just before the 2004, 2002, 2000, 1998, 1996, ..., 1982 elections -- and I would not yet have to have issued such congratulations! _History_ shows that your hopes in regard to fiscally-spendy Republican lawmakers simply _have not yet been borne out_.

I suggest that if you carefully analyze GOP rhetoric, you can see for yourself how it's designed to deflect attention from the numbers I've been quoting, by using "loaded" words and emotional appeals to non-fiscal stuff.

- - -

Edit:

Here's a table that illustrates one aspect of what I've claimed. I don't cite it as an _authoritative_ source (I'm still looking) because I know that politically-related Wikipedia articles are subject to edit wars and such, so are not reliable ... but its figures are consistent with those I recall from, e.g., WSJ. And no, it doesn't show Congressional party divisions (I'm not finished looking), but it shows some of what I mean.

Look at the table _at the bottom of this page_.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationa...idential_terms

It covers the period 1978-2005. Note that federal spending increased an average of 12.1% during Republican administrations, but only 9.9% during Democratic administrations, and the national debt increased an average of 35.4% during Republican administrations, but only 4.2% during Democratic administrations, while GDP increased an average of 12.6% during Democratic administrations, but only 10.7% during Republican administrations.

Yes, I need to check the details of how the figures were arrived-at (I can see already one problem in that they calculate some figures not by year, but by presidential term, whether that be 4, 8, or some other number of years- this needs correction), but you can see for yourself the overall picture.

BTW, the apparent one-year offset (first Carter budget is for fiscal year 1978, not 1977) is not a mistake. Remember when fiscal years start.

In fact, I think it needs to be adjusted yet another year -- i.e., the first fiscal year for which a ABCD-submitted budget was his work, and not mainly his predecessor's work, was fiscal year (year ABCD was elected + 3)!. It has to do with the fact that when ABCD submitted the FY (year ABCD was elected + 2) budget to Congress in early (year ABCD was elected + 1) just after his inauguration, it was too soon for his administration to have gone through the budget and thoroughly make it his "own". This is what the WSJ did -- credit each president with the budgets starting only in FY (year president was elected + 3).

[cheesehead]

A Wikipedia article

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve-the-beast

on what I posted here:

Originally Posted by cheesehead

... which is desirable insofar as it ties the hands of future liberal presidents and legislators to enact immoral social spending ...

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by mdettweiler

Oh, I see--I thought this was just an ordinary overhead presentation projector, not a big planetarium-sized one.

See? That's what McCain wants you to think about his deliberate mischaracterization, that it's wasteful federal spending.

In other words, he deliberately distorted the facts about this item in order to portray it as something it's not.

That's L Y I N G.

With that in mind, though, this begs the question: how much does this new one cost?

$3 million, as already quoted above

Can the government really afford to purchase it on money that they don't have?

Depends on your definition of "afford" and "don't have".

We have to set priorities for government spending, and means of government income to pay for it, of course. I contend that this (single, you'll notice) precision scientific instrument is well worth $3 million. Note that the last one lasted 40 years and has educated millions of people.

Could the government afford to spend about (ultimately, considering rebuilding expense and treating veterans' medical ills) $2 trillion to invade and destroy a country which not only was not a threat to us, but also served as a useful bulwark against theocratic-and-soon-to-be-nuclear-weapon-equipped Iran's expansionist ambitions in the Middle East? with money it borrowed from China, among other entities? China currently receives tens of millions of U.S. dollars each year as income from the U.S. Treasury bonds it owns.

Here's an idea: (1) Spend $3 million the government _does_ have to buy the projector for one of this country's greatest educational institutions (and U.S. National Historic Landmark). (2) Cancel spending $6 million to subsidize moving jobs overseas. (3) Cancel borrowing $3 million to cover the net effect of #1 and #2. (4) Cancel all government-sponsored faith-based abstinence-only sex education (which has been clearly shown to be ineffective in reducing either unwanted pregnancies or STD transmissions) programs, saving further millions of dollars.