Thanks to Bush!!!!

Re: ...and it is more than just job growth

We heard the same arguments when Jimmy Carter was running against Gerald Ford. We remember Ford's ignorance of foreign policy ("There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe") and his solution to our nation's economic woes was for everyone to wear WIN (Whip Inflation Now) buttons.

Well, we listened and voted for Carter. What happened after Carter's election? Carter, while a nice, decent man, whom I like, nearly ruined our nation.

American hostages were held captive in Iran and the economy was ruined. Remember 21% inflation, huge unemployment rates, long gas lines with us paying $2.00 per gallon, etc.

Now, Carl, I am sorry for your personal economic plight. But you have to remember, America's economy generally follows the world's economy.

Also, NOT YOU, but many who complain about personal struggles do not know how to manage their money, do not know how to budget, and do not care about tomorrow. The have an "Eat-drink-and-be-merry-for-tomorrow-you-may-die" attitude.

When we choose to live away beyond our means, try to keep up with the Joneses, etc., we suffer and want to blame everyone else thus failing to take personal responsibility for our plight.

The economy under Bush, even with the 9/11 attacks, fighting two wars, and fighting a war against terrorism, is in good shape. A 5.4% unemployment rate is EXCELLENT! It is lower than when Clinton ran for reelection. Under Nixon's first term the unemployment rate was 5% and everyone raved.

If you think you will be better off under the tax and spend rad-lib policies of Kerry, you really need to study his 20-year Senate voting record.

This billionaire who claims he understands your problems is kidding. I bet, unlike wealthy Nelson Rockefeller and Bobby Kennedy, Kerry never visited the ghettos and slums of America, literally touched, hugged, and listened to the needs and concerns of the poor.

Politicians today talk a good game. The Nelson Rockefellers and Bobby Kennedys of the past who went into the heart of devastation and poverty are sorely lacking on the current political scene.

 

Re: Re: ...and it is more than just job growth

“We remember Ford's ignorance of foreign policy ("There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe") “

Actually Ford was right - he just failed to express his thoughts clearly- he meant that although Eastern Europe was dominated by the Soviet, most Eastern European citizens most wanted freedom. For more information check out his autobiography “A Time to Heal”. Do the Poles or Chechs want to return to communism?

”Well, we listened and voted for Carter. What happened after Carter's election? Carter, while a nice, decent man, whom I like, nearly ruined our nation.”

I worked on “Star Wars” under Carter (Reagan declassified it). He cancelled the B-1 (which I had worked on) because it had been rendered obsolete by stealth developments. But he started the classified B-2 program to replace the B-1. Reagan later restarted the B-1 to satisfy a campaign promise.

As noted previously the economy seems to run independantly of Presidential/congressional wishes.


”Also, NOT YOU, but many who complain about personal struggles do not know how to manage their money, do not know how to budget, and do not care about tomorrow. The have an "Eat-drink-and-be-merry-for-tomorrow-you-may-die" attitude.”
I agree, but the Federal and some State governments also have a spend/borrow now-pay later approach (California voters keep voting in bonds which keep driving up my California property taxes).

 

Re: Re: Re: ...and it is more than just job growth

 

Re: Re: ...and it is more than just job growth

Jimmy,
My "personal economic plight" is prosperous, despite what I said in a previous post - how could it not be with the kind of income my wife and I earn?

However, my point is that the "light is flickering". We are not accumulating wealth as quickly as we did in the past, even with "tax breaks" for people in my income bracket. Furthermore, we see many others around us who are in far worse shape than they were 4 or 5 years ago.

Bush has done nothing to watch the store in the areas of rising health care costs, the general malaise in the economy, rising oil prices, and a whole host of other domestic issues that any GOOD president would have paid much more attention to. Instead, he's off chasing down "bad guys", and the wrong bad guys at that.

Where is Osama bin Laden? Gone.... hiding.... disappeared. Oh yeah, we got Saddam, his daddy's old enemy. Wonder why Iraq took precedence over catching the remnants of Al Qaeda? Could it be because Saudi oil money is protecting both Al Qaeda AND the Bush family? Is there some back room deal that we don't know about?

Makes for good speculation doesn't it?

Well, the very fact that we can speculate about it, and that a lot of us aren't certain that we can trust our president with our safety, future, and well-being means he should be FIRED.

Nothing personal - just business!

 

Re: Re: Re: ...and it is more than just job growth

Oh, I know. As the saying goes, "All politics is local." Each person votes his or her pocketbook, usually. This year many of us will vote for security knowing that an unsafe, insecure world will blight our ability to fully enjoy life and prosperity and that another terrorist attack will hurt the economy more than the last attack.

Carl, I am glad your plight wasn't so bad as I had inferred. But, how can the President stop rising health care costs? Should we move towards a socialist system and abandon free enterprise? Should we impose wage and price controls?

Most who support some form of national health care system fail to realize Canadiens are crossing the border coming here for medical treatment. In Canada many people wait up to six months for heart surgeries, etc.

I admit the cost of health care and prescription drugs are simply outrageous. But, the answer is not more government, it is less government. The FDA should allow alternative medications. Many cancer patients are greatly assisted by alternative medications available in other countries.

Dick Jacobs was a Libertarian politician in Michigan. He went south, somewhere in the Caribbean, and received Laetrile treatments. His life was prolonged for many, many years and his health greatly improved. He reported alleviation of pain, etc.

I think if Kerry is elected those who so ardently supported him will be sorely disappointed based on his 20-year Senate record, I really do. Lieberman or Gephart would have been better choices and either (especially Lieberman) would have made a much better President than Kerry.

But, if Kerry is elected, I will withhold all comments until about six month's into his Presidency. If he is elected we all need to come together and give him a chance to see what he will do.

Once the election is over, we need to get behind our Commander-in-Chief and give him a chance. It's the right thing to do.

 

I don't consider the President "Our Commader in Chief". He is only the civilian commander in chief if you are in the military (active or reserve).

As far as getting behind him, I could care less if he recieved a 90% approval rating, I would never get behind this President. In my mind he has shown such utter contempt for the working class of this nation as well as our military personnel. To me, doing good means everything, looking good means nothing.

Is Kerry any better? Probably not. However, this President hasn't done squat for the middle class (or even upper middle class), and has done less for the poor. He got up before the the Congress and his god and stated unequivacally that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction even after the evidence showed that Iraq did not (he never mentioned that he was removing Saddam for humanitarian reasons). To me, that is a lie, as plain as simple as when Clinton said "I did not have sex with that woman".

I suspect that we will have 4 more unfortunate years with this chimp of a man. But he will never have my support.

 

Mr. Engineer,

Please explain to me how Bush lied about WMD's. All the intelligence--U.S. and other nations'--supported this. Germany, Russia, France, Great Britian, and other nations said their intelligence showed the exact same thing.

John Kerry and John Edwards both said Saddam had WMD's. When one makes a decision based on the available data, the decision is not a lie.

We can thank Bill Clinton for ruining the American intelligence community!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We can thank Kerry and Edwards for missing important intelligence committee hearings. Edwards' excuse for missing: He was busy running for President!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I think he was elected to serve his constituents, not run for President during his first term in office.

 

It comes down to the choices we make. I live outside of the Washington, DC area where an average house runs about $400,000 to 500,000. Instead of paying that kind of cash I choose to commute in each day, approximately 90 minutes each way. I own a 4 bedroom 2 1/2 house on nearly an acre of land that I purchased for just over $200,000. I live in the mountains in a small town, the schools are better, the people are nicer, the air is fresher. I spend more in gas each month but nowhere near what I would spend if I had bitten off a $450,000 mortgage. With all due respect, we shouldn't blame the President for our personal choices.

Pug

 

Re: ...and it is more than just job growth

You know Carl...

I think I agree with every one of your observations and disagree with every one of your conclusions. Most people are making much less now than they were in the "90s while pay much more for healthcare and housing. The income we were making in the '90s was not substanable. Much of it was due to the Tech Bubble and the roaring stock market. We all knew the party was going to end and it did. At the same time. we escaped a massive depression like our country experienced in the '30s. I am very thankful that families did not have to endure that kind of upheavel.

President Bush, or any President, has little effect on what we are talking about. Do you think Clinton was actually responsible for the previous success? I certainly don't. The best thing he did was remain ineffectual. That gave Business the stability it needed to invest in new ventures. Considering what we have endured, 9-11 and 2 wars, I think our country is doing surprisingly well.

Yes, we were all rolling in it in the '90s, but to expect a return to that is silly. Kerry honestly scares me. He says so many nonsensical things and does so with a straight face. If he actually believes what he says that would be even scarier, but I doubt that is the case. I believe Bush has done a reasonable, if flawed, job as President. I think 4 more of the same is a lot safer than putting a totally unreliable person in office such as Kerry.

 

That is the crux of the matter. If Kerry is as bad or worse than Bush, what good will it do to elect him?

More importantly what exactly will Kerry do if elected? Even his supporters have no idea. This may be the way to get elected, but who exactly are we putting in office? Some sleazy politician that purposefully wounded himself 3 times to get out of Vietnam? No, thank you!

I wish there were a way to provide universal health care and better aid to those struggling. It would take a much higher level of taxation than I think we are willing to accept. I don't think Kerry or anyone else has a workable plan to do that.

 

Companies without earnings or realistic prospects rolled out IPOs as if that was their whole purpose for being. Their insiders grew rich beyond the dreams of Midas as hordes of investors with dollar signs in their eyes bought up the shares in the belief that there would always be still more investors coming along behind them to keep driving up the shares.

And when the supply of investors willing to keep buying the shares at ever-higher prices dried up, when attention turned from speculation to fundamentals, there was little there that was tangible enough to keep the bubble inflated. The house of cards collapsed, just like the more pedestrian chain-letter scams do. People unloaded, the shares fell through the floor and many investors lost their retirement savings.

I guess that Bill Clinton was a dream. If you are talking about Congress, it's hard to have it both ways. If the Democrats get the credit for the late-90's prosperity, then they have to take the blame for the kind of raw greed and excess that would have made an oil company executive blush. If the Republicans in Congress get the blame for the excesses, then they will get the credit for the short-lived prosperity as well.

Personally, I agree that both parties are tainted by self-centered greed and excess. Both parties exist to funnel money into their supporters' pockets, it's just that they disagree about whose pockets should be filled and whose personal interest coincides with the national interest.

The relevant measure isn't productivity/worker-labor-hour. The measure that really counts is productivity/dollar-of-labor-cost.

American workers might be 20% more productive per hour worked than workers in a competing country, but if they are 100% more expensive per unit produced, they will still have trouble competing.

 

Kerry wounded himself? You seem like an intelligent man Dave, please tell me that you really don't beleive Karl Rove's (who is the poster child for sleezy - 10X sleezier than Robertson, Clinton, and Nixon put together), Swift Boats for Bullshit. (these same swift boaters who supported Kerry in his Senate campaign). Kerry, a man of obvious privlidge who could have weaseled his way out of service in Vietnam much like Bush and definitely Cheney, volunteered. No matter what you think about him, you cannot take that away from him.

Put simply, Bush is a failure as a President, a liar as a human being, and someone who uses his religion not for personal strength, but as a means to get ahead. Weighing the differences between the two men, it is quite easy to vote for Kerry, even if I don't like his agenda. Voting for a known failure is foolish.

(I already sent in my absentee ballot - it is really moot in CA anyway, no Bush has ever won - or even come close)

 

Here is a classic example of radical liberal hypocrisy. When those who are religious champion conservative political causes, the rad-libs say it's wrong or only for political expediency.

Yet, when religious folks--Rev. Martin Luther King, Rev. William Sloan Coffin, Sister Diane Drufenbrock, The Berrigan Brothers, Rev. James Reeb, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rev. Ralph David Abernathy, Rev. Al Sharpton, et. al., champion liberal causes such as protesting the Vietnam War, opposing the Iraq War, championing civil rights, opposing capital punishment, advocating pro choice positions, etc., then the left is silent.

Mind you, many of the issues I just mentioned are (were) honorable. I am just showing the blatant hypocrisy.

In other words, it's okay for the religious left to express their freedom of speech but not the religious right.

More hypocrisy!

 

Well ME...

You seem very wound up in the rhetoric and not very interested in the truth. Yes I believe Kerry's 90 days of service in Vietnam to be a joke. When the Medical Personnel that attended his wounds are astonished he received a Purple Heart for those wounds and believe Kerry's account of the events to be a fabrication, I take that seriously.

What did he do after his 90 days? He came back and attacked the very troops he had been serving with. He certainly is not a man I would ever vote for.

As to President Bush, you are, at best, over stating your case. If the President was as horrible as you suggest, he would already be impeached. The truth is he is doing a reasonable job, but like most humans is imperfect.

Please ME keep your politics from blinding you. We have enough ultra liberals and conservatives already.

 

I think...

that for the most part, Liberals including people like Mr. Engineer and others get caught up in the talking points, that they cannot see past them to the truth. In forums here I have debated Liberals and never gotten responses. For the most part, their arguments are baseless and ineffective. Rarely (except from comments by Tom Head and Riich Douglas) have I come away from a discussion with something to think about. Mostly, it is just comments that degrade people, such as calling the president a chimp. How can you say that you won't vote for Bush because he is a liar (which is not clear), and say that you will vote for Kerry instead?

Everything is emotional pleas...."Dems are for minorities the working man!" Are they? Is it actually true, or is it just what they say. Again, as a Black American I ask.....If they promise all of this stuff, where is it? They always say, "I'm for X" and people just go along with it. It is not about what they say they are for. It is about what they do. On national security, they are weak. On economics, they are very underinformed. Socially, they put out all of these ineffective programs that perpetuate poverty and promote class warfare in our country. Look the the two websites. The GOP site talks about all that they plan to do. the DEM site talks about how terrible the GOP is.

I cannot fathom the possibility that Kerry could do or say anything that would make me vote for him.

 

I think...

that for the most part, Liberals including people like Mr. Engineer and others get caught up in the talking points, that they cannot see past them to the truth. In forums here I have debated Liberals and never gotten responses. For the most part, their arguments are baseless and ineffective. Rarely (except from comments by Tom Head and Riich Douglas) have I come away from a discussion with something to think about. Mostly, it is just comments that degrade people, such as calling the president a chimp. How can you say that you won't vote for Bush because he is a liar (which is not clear), and say that you will vote for Kerry instead?

Everything is emotional pleas...."Dems are for minorities the working man!" Are they? Is it actually true, or is it just what they say. Again, as a Black American I ask.....If they promise all of this stuff, where is it? They always say, "I'm for X" and people just go along with it. It is not about what they say they are for. It is about what they do. On national security, they are weak. On economics, they are very underinformed. Socially, they put out all of these ineffective programs that perpetuate poverty and promote class warfare in our country. Look the the two websites. The GOP site talks about all that they plan to do. the DEM site talks about how terrible the GOP is.

I cannot fathom the possibility that Kerry could do or say anything that would make me vote for him.

 

If you (and many others who have said the same thing) are talking about Kerry's Congressinal testimony, I don't see it. His "attack" was indeed harsh, but it was directed at Washington politicians and the architects of the VN War. If you read the testimony, Kerry talks in glowing terms about the people he served with.

He does defend the young people who protested the war here in the states. Conservatives like to see this as an indirect "attack" on the people serving in VN. Many others see the protests as "honoring" servicemen and women for helping to end an unjust war. If not for those protests, the war may have dragged on for many years.

Read the testimony and decide for yourself (or just believe what you want to):

http://ice.he.net/~freepnet/kerry/index.php?topic=Testimony

 

Thank you for writing this post, DCross. I agree.

Chris

 

I guess some people would rather place labels on others instead of knowing the facts. The fact is, I am registered Libertarian. Not that liberals are bad however, some of my best friends are liberals.

The Neo-cons, supported by Karl Rove, have managed to demonized liberals as almost being the anti-christ. More rhetoric.

Dave:
Up until this time, I believed that you were an intelligent man. I guess I was totally wrong about you. For you to actually believe the "Swift Boat for Bullshit" group, you have to be a die-hard Neo con without a lick of common sense.

I for one agree with Kerry's stance on Vietnam and his testimony afterwards. When I was growing up in Oakland, I met with a lot of front line VN army veterans. They related VN as being almost a free-for-all where everything went. (killing women, children, and non-combatants) While I don't blame the soldliers, I do blame the people in charge.

 

I think you are missing one key point,

KERRY SERVED

Bush - Weaseled

Cheney - Dodged

Hastalt: Dodged

Rove: Dodged

When are you going to understand this? For eight years the Neo's dogged Clinton. I wish that the demo's were such P----, because I don't think GW could live up to the same scruntany.