more flaming politics

[Biggsk@aol.com]

Jeff writes:

<< 
 It is truly amazing that this Reagan fallacy (aka Voodoo Economics) survives
 in spite of the fact that it is even more false now than it was in 1980.  If
 you cut taxes and increase spending (ala Reagan-Bush) you increase the
 deficit and the national debt.  If you increase deficit and debt, you raise
> unemployment and interest rates.  It happened 1980-1992.
 
No fallacy - even Clinton paid some homage to it in a speech when he talked 
about how lower taxes have pumped more money into government coffers.  To 
begin, supply side economics was created by Adam Smith many many years ago.  
Based on low taxes and growing the economy, history has shown well that it 
works and works every time it is implemeneted - providing the government 
spending is not increased to eat up the increased revenues.  This Reagan did, 
which raised the debt.  But almost every president has made government bigger 
since the Civil War.

However - the fact remains, and you can get these figures from the Department 
of Commerce BTW, that from the tax cut of 1984 on, more and more businesses 
were started than ever before, the stock market began its bull market drive 
that still reigns today (despite the e.com bad news of the last few months) 
and unemployment started its long decline as well.  I give more credit to 
Paul Volcker and Alan Greenspan for these things, but the tax cut was 
Reagan's to make.  Do some research Jeff.

If Bush cuts taxes and holds spending in line there will be no debt or 
deficit increase (this assumes you believe that Clinton crap about the budget 
being balanced - it is NOT!)

> Clinton was no liberal, at least as the L-word has been bastardized.  He
 eliminated the deficit and backed welfare reform, you don't get much more
 conservative than that.  He inherited unfathonable debt and fiscal shit.  He
 dealt with it without blaming his predecessors.  GW blamed his predecessor
 for a minor economic slowdown before he set foot in DC - not the picture of
> responsiblity.
 
Cracks me up to no end when Democrats try to paint Clinton as "not a 
liberal."  I heard every one of his State Of The Union addresses and all I 
heard was "more government programs."  The man LOVES big government - I hate 
big government as it is the greatest threat to liberty and freedom in 
history.  In his last address I lost count after 20 of the new government 
programs he was wanting to create!  Not a liberal.  OK - not as much as Gore, 
Kennedy, etc. 

And - Clinton did indeed blame his predessors in his campaign.  I distinctly 
recall the James Carville battle cry for the first term of ,"It's the economy 
, stupid!"  Despite the fact that Clinton's own economic people will tell you 
that the burp recession was over a year or so before Bush left office, 
Clinton will try, and does try, to make his claim for turning things around - 
despite the FACT that presidents, other than raising or lowering taxes by 
signing such bills into law (and Clinton raised taxes, as did Daddy Bush), 
have NOTHING to do with the economy!

>BTW - Bill Clinton is gone.  Stop fighting against the man.  And please stop 
 making it so Clinton-personal.  Political discourse  should be about  
relevant actions and >policy, not a man's friends or his dick.

When the dick of an elected official, sworn to uphold the law,  gets involved 
in a legal deposition for a civil law case, and he lies through his teeth 
about it after swearing an oath to tell the truth in that deposition, then it 
is proper political discourse indeed!  I could care less if he has sex with 
ducks!  But do not claim to be the top law enforcement officer of the nation 
and then break the law!   We would be in jail for doing so - so should he!   
The law applies equally to all - even if Democrats have a very hard time with 
the concept of the law it seems.  As for the friends, I was only reacting to 
the knee jerk response to Bush's friends posted earlier.  A president's 
friends are indeed proper political discourse as well when they become 
involved in advising policy.

> That's more like it, thank you.  He will try.  I only hope my Senators
> (Kennedy & Kerry) can effectively fight these bad ideas.
 
Ahh, Ted Kennedy - one of the poster children for term limits indeed - and a 
man that skates from justice himself.  I at least respect John and Bobby - 
both of whom were miles smarter than Teddy boy.

So - you must enjoy paying over 50 per cent of your income on all levels of 
taxes.  Even Clinton was on record a couple years ago saying that he was 
sorry for Chelsea's kids as he though the tax rate then would be about 80 per 
cent!  Well - it goes up only if the government keeps growing bigger and 
bigger, taking more money out of the people's pockets, and since our economy 
is two thirds consumer driven, what do you think will happen when there's 
even less money to spend?

Want to know the real reason that most families must have two working 
parents?  You Democrats will instantly yell "greed", and sometimes that is 
indeed the case.  But the real reason, according to the study done by the 
American Taxpayer's Union, is that one has to work just to pay all the taxes! 
 We have seen very well the social effects of the collapse of the two parent 
family by the actions of their kids.

And you then must love sinking your money into the wonderful Social Security 
System, despite the fact that it will collapse by the time I am 65 (I'm 47 
now) unless there's a massive tax increase to keep it going.  Why keep it 
going when the private sector, which beats government in nearly everything it 
does with both hands tied behind its back, can get you far better rates of 
return.  And the added bonus is - the government can't take those funds and 
put them in the General Fund and claim a balanced budget - like Clinton did a 
couple years ago!  The General Fund owes the SS Fund over $700 Billion from 
such highjinks, which just proves even more that idiot politicians will spend 
your money faster than you can give it to them.  We'll leave out that these 
raids of the SS Fund also violates the law.  Chile has a far better SS Sytem 
than we do - and it is completely privatized.

Now - for the cabinet departments I would like to see closed down - please 
cite for me the passages of the United States Constitution that provides for 
their legal existance for each of them.  I will expect your essay on this, 
and please cite article and section, in our next discourse.  As for the EPA - 
any agency that mandates three gallon flush toilets, will not allow new oil 
refineries to be built, will not allow new power plants of a large capacity 
to be built, is not only insane - but a threat to our national security.   
Please get back to me when gas goes back up to $2 a gallon and stays there 
thanks to Clinton's lame EPA and lack of energy policy for 8 years.   Look at 
California for proof of bad big government and their state's EPA and the 
power problems out there.

I like nice clean air and water as much as anyone - but overmandating, as has 
been done, exacts a economic cost and a security cost that is now coming home 
to roost in spades.  Watch what happens over the next two years for more 
proof.  You may well lose your job because of it.

In case you are wondering, none of Bush's plans I have seen call for shutting 
down any of the above departments at all, sadly.  The Republicans loves dat 
big gumment too!  That is why I am not a Republican - they have no principles.
 
Kennedy is an idiot - and I expect him to continue to show himself as such 
and defend big, bloated government.  So, I take it that you live in the 
People's Republic Of Massachusetts then?  Love your gun control laws by the 
way - they sure saved those people in that recent shoot out in the office 
building!  Good job - more blood thanks to stupid laws from stupid 
politicians.  When will you learn that these laws only punish the law abiding?

> The up side is that the Libertarian movement has no future.  There is no
 corporate support for the philosophy.  No corporate support = no political
> future.
 
So - despite the fact that the Big Two parties are losing membership, and the 
Libertarian Party is gaining membership in leaps and bounds from people fed 
up with the Big Two's complete lack of respect for the Constitution, you 
think it has no future?  And despite the results of the two year study by 
Rasmussen Research that shows 16 per cent of Americans to be libertarians in 
philosophy (as opposed to 12 per cent liberal and 7 per cent conservative, 
with the balnce being middle of the road)?  Then why do we have one in 
Congress, and hundreds more in office nationwide - more than ever before in 
our 30 year history?  Why are we drawing more and more people away from the 
Big Two if we did not have something better, more focused and more 
principled, to offer?

I personnally have converted 8 Republicans and 4 Democrats to the Libertarian 
Party - and all joined and voted that way in the last election.

The men that started this nation were largely Libertarian.  They did not 
design a government that was to be all for all, like the Democrats want it to 
be.  The Constitution they wrote is a Libertarian document - small Federal 
government with few concise powers and the rest left to the states and the 
people.  Many parties started historically in a grass roots movement and won 
power over time.  The Nazi Party in Germany in the 1920's and 1930's never 
had any corporate support whatsoever, until after they had power, and look 
what they ended up doing!  Marxism in Russia had no corporate support either 
BTW.  Both were entirely populist movements.

> Thomas Jefferson is dead too.  He was no saint.  A slave owner and an
 elitist who had a way with words.
  >>

Never said Tom was a saint - just one of our greatest political philosophers, 
who had profound effect on our country and government.  Can't even think of 
anyone today that can carry his jockstrap.  Jefferson was not elitist like 
some of his New England contemporaries BTW - he was the high priest of 
egalitarianism of his day, much to the distress of his New England friends.

Getting real tired of the liberals lambasting our Founding Fathers about some 
of them being slave owners.  That was the way of the world back then - it has 
changed for the better now thanks to the deaths of 350,000 boys in blue 
uniforms and the 13th Amendment.  Jefferson's own writings foretold of its 
collapse and his own disdain for it.  But, shall we denigrate his massive 
accomplishments for our country like the Declaration of Independence, help 
with the Bill Of Rights, and laying the blueprint for proper, small 
Constitutional government because he was a product of his times? 

This, then, begs the question -  would you like to be judged by the standards 
of 200 years from now for your actions that you do today under today's 
standards?

I wouldn't.

Greg Biggs