McCain Lashes Bush and Congress for Overspending-----

I'm glad someone is saying something. Bush campaigned on fiscal responsiblity yet he's turning into the most fiscal irresponsible President in history.

 

McCain said Bush, who has never vetoed a spending bill, was in large part responsible for this year's spending levels exceeding prescribed caps of 4 percent growth, at a whopping 8 percent.


Nice .... and people claim Democrats are the spenders?

 

Do they really need even more welfare?

If you read McCain's voting record, you can see that he actually votes according to his ideals, not according to the desires of the "campaign contributors."

I'm no conservative (nor liberal), but have long thought that McCain may be one of the few people in the Senate who is actually a decent person, and genuinely cares about the stability and well-being of the United States. A real American, and worthy of respect.

Conversely, the U.S. is just another cashbox to be plundered and exploited by Dubya and his billionaire pals.

 

The next idiot on this board to claim that the democrats are the party of big government and spending increases should be euthanized.

The scale of deception in which the republicans have perpetrated as to "fiscal conservatism" is really amazing, it would be funny if it wasn't so destructive.

 

Both parties are guilty and now the Republicans have proven that they are just as bad as the Dems. So what's the difference? As George Wallace said, "They're isn't a dime's worth of difference...."

I'll put it to you this way, Republicans are the diet coke of irresponsible spending and Democrats are the full-on coke. Their main criticism of that awful prescription drug benefit bill is that it wasn't enough money! That it was a good start! And you're going to tell me they still aren't the ultimate party of big, intrusive government? It's all about buying votes and the Republicans are simply trying to do the same things Democrats do in buying the votes of wizzened folks with free viagra by mortgaging mine and your future. If you're going to do a program, do it for folks who are poor, not for every single oldster!

People wonder why I vote libertarian.

 

Let's just assume for the sake of argument that you are right and that both republicans and democrats want to increase spending (look at the records during the 90's, this didn't happen, b)

Now, who is more fiscally conservative...one that wants to increase spending and cut taxes?

or the one that wants to keep taxes at the same level and increase spending?

One person wants to buy a new car and keep his job, another wants to buy it but quits his job. Who's more prudent? No brainer.

I'm not sure how many times I have to keep explaining the problem with long term deficits on this bbs. Not one person has ever offered a satisfactory response. It's rather amusing, in the way that kicking dogs and watching them run away is amusing.

 

Here is a column from one of my dear friends in the newspaper business. Even though we agree on next to nothing politically, she hits the nail right on the head. She is right, with this awful prescription drug "benefit" foisted on us by Republicans and their Democrat co-conspirators, it is the old folks, who have all the wealth, screwing the young because they get out and vote.

Drug bill a pill that my brain can't stomach

[ The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: 11/30/03 ]

Certain myths live large in American politics. Black voters are liberal. "Christian" means evangelical or biblical literalist. The elderly struggle to pay for their prescriptions. All are demonstrably false; nevertheless, all are so deeply rooted in political culture that they can't be pulled up or killed off. But it's the last one that will bankrupt your grandchildren.

Even though statistics show that American children, as a group, are poorer than the elderly (who receive Social Security and Medicare), there has been no long-running and noisy campaign to pay for children's prescriptions. Instead, the AARP has managed one of the best public relations scams since the leisure suit, convincing Democrats and, more recently, Republicans that a prescription drug plan should be added to Medicare. It's a complex piece of legislation chock full of giveaways to industry, mostly drug companies.

And it's going to cost plenty. Forget the $400 billion over 10 years that you've been hearing about. Focus on the costs after that. By the time the drug companies finish jacking up their prices, the price tag will be well into the trillions.

By some estimates, the prescription drug benefit will cost $1.5 trillion between 2014 and 2023. The Medicare hospital benefit is already expected to run out of money by 2026, after the baby boom generation has retired.

This bill is so wrongheaded that it's hard to know where to begin.

Lobbied heavily by pharmaceutical companies, which make substantial contributions to political campaigns, the Republican leadership decided not to allow Medicare to use its buying power to negotiate lower prices with drug companies. That borders on insane. It's something that huge private insurers and companies (such as Sam's Club) do every day. But Medicare won't be allowed to do it, virtually guaranteeing that prices for prescriptions drugs -- already high -- will soar into the stratosphere.

Here's another bit of insanity: The bill pays private insurance companies to take elderly patients. You know how one of the tenets of conservative philosophy is that private companies can always deliver a product better and cheaper? So why does the Medicare bill offer billions in subsidies to private insurers to induce them into the market? That's not competition; that's corporate welfare.

Worse yet, the next generation will be stuck with a massive bill for an entitlement that meets no critical need. Many retirees can afford not only their prescriptions but also cruises to Alaska and tours to New England to see the autumn leaves. (Sorry, Mom.) According to recent estimates, 68 percent of seniors spend less than $1,000 per year in out-of-pocket costs for prescriptions. Fifteen percent spend between $1,000 and $2,000.

The other 17 percent have soaring out-of-pocket expenses and may genuinely need help, if they are poor. Congress should have set aside funds to help that small group only. Instead, middle-class retirees get a prescription drug benefit and the poor and sickly, oddly, may be worse off.

A small group of low-income elderly and disabled patients qualify for both Medicare and Medicaid, enabling them to get their prescriptions either free or at very low cost. Under the new bill, many of them will end up paying more for their prescription drugs, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Meanwhile, some 43 million Americans shy of retirement age have no health care coverage at all, not for office visits nor prescription drugs or preventive care such as mammograms. From middle-class professionals who cannot find full-time employment to poor workers shoved from Medicaid rolls by state budget cutbacks, the crisis of the uninsured is getting worse.

So is the nation's debt. Grandpa's prescription bills will be paid by his grandchildren.

Cynthia Tucker is the editorial page editor. Her column appears Sundays and Wednesdays.

link

 

Sam, what makes your argument false is that you have failed to incorporate the proper economic context into your argument. When monetary or fiscal policy is implemented, it is done with the prevailing economic conditions in mind. Increasing spending, cutting taxes and cutting interest rates is a decision that is based on the *current* economic climate. Different times require different policies. To attempt to apply broad-based rules and labels as you do simply lacks economic integrity.

You continue to champion Rubinomics, despite overwhelming evidence that running a budget deficit and financing that deficit with debt has not led to higher interest rates in the past couple of years. In fact, the reverse is true. The current interest rate environment is the lowest it has been in 40 years. Rubinomics, and your theory which does nothing but parrot Rubin, is obliterated. No economist would tell you that cutting spending and raising taxes is the appropriate measure when the economy is in a downturn. As we have seen with last quarter's *booming* growth (over 8% annualized), the Bush Administration's policy has been effective. It is not clear to me why you continue to attempt to bash them in the face of this very persuasive evidence. It is time to review and revise your outdated viewpoint.

 

Rubinomics 1, Reagonomics 0

Scoreboard.

 

Sam, surely this is not the best you can do. I presented to you evidence that Rubinomics is dead in the water. Instead of refuting this, you post the above? Failure. Reagan's fiscal policy led to an unprecedented market uptick in the 80's. It led to unprecedented strength in the dollar. Rubin's policies led to one of the largest stock market bubbles in the history of mankind, followed by an equally large bust. This is the basis for your little scoreboard analogy? Very weak.

Tackle the subject matter, Sam.

1. Rubinomics, as a theory, has been obliterated by the current interest rate environment.

2. In the last quarter, the economy grew at a rate faster than any other quarter in the last 20 years. Is it merely coincidence that this came on the heels of Bush's huge fiscal policy move? No.

I have dealt you a crippling blow by proving your outdated stance to be false. You have failed in your attempt at countering. You are circling the drain at this point like a piece of Charmin after my Thanksgiving dinner.

 

SamFisher, email me at behad@yahoo.com


Carry on...

 

I like McCain, but doesn't he have that one flaw where he divorced his wife while she was in the hospital, after she waited for him to come home from Vietnam?

Cut taxes and raise spending, carry on.

I actually agree with bamaslammer, woohoo. Children should be getting health coverage.

 

Dang no edit, I voted for McCain, but I don't think he can win the nomination for the Republican Party, too many fundamentalists in the process for a non Jesus freak to win.

 

This is my one big beef with Bush...he is not being fiscally responsible, and IMHO this is a huge problem for his re-election bid.

DD

 

The problem, TJ, is that I have done that on many occassions in many threads, and all I get is either the runaround or the runaway from you. Part of the reason for this is because of an intellectually dishonest twisting of the facts,

I think it was pretty obvious what I was doing above, merely comparing the alleged "tax and spend" democrats, by common every day measures, were surely more fiscally "disciplined" than the alleged "cut tax and spend" republicans. This is a pretty basic point which only tangentially brushes up against Rubinomics and the rest.

Anyway, I have a spare few minutes so I will briefly address some of your points even though it really has nothing at all to do with this thread.

"Past couple of years"? I thought I made it pretty clear (as did Goldman Sachs' biting analysis last week, as has Greenspan, as has Rubin) that the danger of budget deficits (and crowding out, higher interest rates) is long term, not short term. As I've said before, in a bunch of threads, only a monkey living on mars would argue that a tax cut would have NO economic stimulus effect of any kind. Again, as I've said before, a short term payroll tax cut would have had both greater stimulus and greater equity than the hodgepodge of long term tax cuts and and out and out giveaways that we got under Bush II, but that is beside the point.

Indeed, and I know of no mainstream economists who advocated this course of action; nor did I.

LOL, we both know the stupidity of attributing short term gains/losses in the economy to whoever is in Washington. Yawn, I will predictably invoke the sustained growth of the 90's under Rubin and attribute it fully to him. There, now we're equally stupid and I feel soiled.

 

I've seen several articles recently in magazines like Barrons and Forbes about how Bush has been pressuring the Fed into pumping steroids into the economy that will come back to roost. All of these sources predict that we will see a reoccurance of the circa 1972 Nixon induced economic collapse after next years election and that there is no reason why any sane person would persue this sort of economic policy unless it was to get relected at the expense of a future inflation problem and the resulting massive recession.

If you would like some refrences let me know. I hope, also, that you won't attempt to claim that Barrons or Forbes are liberal rant sheets or anything.

 

I saw a column by Cal Thomas (does anyone besides me remember him from his Houston days... Channel 2?) where he essentially says it's time to start a new Republican Revolution because these Republicans have lost their way. (I'll look for it tomorrow.)

 

I would have voted for McCain in the general election had he been tapped instead of our current puppet in chief.

This administration has increased government spending, inflated deficits, and shown fiscal irresponsibility at every turn. The congress has been complicit in this as they are the ones who actually write the laws that authorized this spending spree.

 

As anyone with a bank account knows, you can't flush money down the toilet forever. Sooner or later, you get an overdrawn notice, and the well runs dry.

I can't believe the fiscal irresponsibility of this president. He took *GIANT* surplueses, turned them into *GIANT* deficits, and *THEN* waged perpetual global war.