Johnson is singlehandedly responsible for the awful cesspool that is what Walter Williams dubbed the "Poverty Pentagon." Continually sent more troops to Vietnam without trying to truly win the war (by unrestricted bombing of the North). Gave away the Panama Canal. Savaged the defense budget and made us look like a bunch of pansies to the Russkies, leading to a decade of Soviet expansionism. Presided over awful stagflation. Sold out a life-long ally in the Shah of Iran and is directly responsible for the WMD threat we face from Iran today. Likely the worst president ever.....besides....... Put the nation through a year of scandal because he wanted to get a bj from an intern old enough to be his daughter and couldn't be a MAN and tell the truth. First president to be impeached. Sold us out the Chinese, allowing them to steal our nuke secrets through either incompetence (likely) or simply in a quid-pro-quo (more likely) for campaign secrets. Allowed sophisticated satellite technology to be sold to Chicoms. Pardoned Macherto terrorists in a sick attempt to help his wife get the Puerto Rican vote in her Senate campaign. Pardoned Marc Rich in a seedy deal. Allowed Al Qaeda to grow and expand, thanks to lax policy of treating terrorism as a LE and not a military problem. Shot his wad of cruise missiles at an aspirin factory and some Afghan tents to deflect attention from his impeachment trial. Did absolutely nothing against terrorism except talk, which he was a master of. The absolute worst president of our time and perhaps the most wicked, self-serving, unstatesman-like world leader of all time. And did I forget, he presided over the biggest tax increase in U.S. history!
To be fair, it was Ken Starr that put the country through a year of scandal by muckraking about a bj when he couldn't find anything illegal in the investigation he was charged with (Whitewater). Say it with me...Andrew Johnson. And you accuse the lefties of being conspiracy theorists. How many did Reagan pardon? Ford pardoned one of the biggest political crooks of this century. Puh-leeze. I agree with one thing....Clinton WAS the master of talk. However, Clinton did more to fight terrorism than any other president in history to that point. You can post-9/11 spin all you want, but the fact is that it was the GOP led Congress that hamstrung him (along with the Starr witch hunt). If you want someone to blame for Clinton not invading or doing anything more concrete on Al Qaeda or Osama, talk to Ken Starr. You are absolutely, totally insane if you believe this. The depths of your insanity are becoming very apparent. I think that the ESTABLISHMENT of the income tax would qualify as the LARGEST tax increase in US history, but I guess that doesn't fit in with your hyperbole. Besides, the Clinton tax increase was done in order to *gasp* balance the budget, something that conservatives haven't even tried to do since...I can't even think of a time since WWII that a "conservative" has done that. You could have the most narrow worldview of anyone on this board with the possible exception of the magical disappearing t_j.
Actually, if we were giving an award for worst pardons ever, it would be George Bush I who takes the cake. He pardoned Dr. Orlando Bosch, a Cuban Terrorist (he would say freedom fighter) whose signature accomplishment was to mastermind the bombing of a civilian airliner killing 76 people. Got to help out Jeb in Florida though... Then of course, there was a watergate felon (reliable party donor) and a Pakistani Heroin smuggler (friend of Jesse Helms)also thrown in there for good measure.
Andrew Johnson (a Republican) was the first President to be impeached and GH Bush presided over the biggest tax increase percentage wise in US History.
Fatty, did you start this thread when you were drunk? All you guys saying "No Dem/Repub president has done any good" really need to get a grip on reality. This looks like yet another LAME attempt to demonize an opposing party. Newsflash: No one has EVER, and no one will ever, make perfectly good or bad choices as president.
Others have argued some of the points you made, but I'll just add a bit. Rather than give a away the Canal, Carter lived up to the word of the U.S. and honored the treaty signed by the U.S. Is it wrong to follow treaties that your govt. signs? Why shouldn't we give the canal away? It itsn't in our country. The shah was a corrupt despot. The fact that he was a long time friend in the first place was the mistake. It also placed us in a negative light when the revolution came. Bush having trade days where U.S. sent military to China to work, while they sent Military to the U.S. to work is no worse than anything Clinton did. If arresting and imprisoning terrorists who carried out the '93 WTC bombings I would take some more of that kind of 'absolutely nothing'. If preventing the LAX bombing is doing 'absolutely nothing' I wish we had been doing that kind of 'absolutely nothing' on 9/11. Facts and history are easily there to refute your arguments.
Where's the historian? I sure hope Major didn't run him off. This is my favorite thread of 2004, to date. I'm not even kidding.
Where's Bama? He seems to be MIA since his lack of historical knowledge has been exposed and his arguement was eviscerated point by point.
Worst thing about this is Fatty's not just being taxed 70% -- he's being taxed 70% on a historian's salary. That's gotta hurt. (p.s. to the spelling contest purists: I will not say "an historian." I will not.)
Nahh, that never slows him down. I'm guessing he's at Wal-Mart stocking up on ammo in anticipation of having to defend the homestead against warrant-free police searches.
Isn't this a pretty pointless thread? If one were get to nitpick stuff from his own biased POV, then we can pretty much say every president sucks, or that awesome, depending on where you're standing. In addition, presidents don't make decisions by himself. He's like the QB of a football team, gets all the credit and criticism for what his TEAM does. Which makes things even harder to analyze. I'm not sure just how much history matters in the present day. For example, I tend to get two greatly different views on the jobs done by Carter and Clinton, both Democrats. So it's clear that party affiliation doesn't matter nearly as much as the person himself. So looking at the present day situation, I could see what Dubya has done. His last 4 years in office is MUCH MORE TELLING of what he's going to do in the next 4 years(should he gain re-election), then what Republican presidents have done historically. In contrast, I think John Kerry's Senate history is a much better indicator of how he'll do as president than what previous democratic presidents have done.
Meh, I love history as a hobby, not as an occupation. What exactly are you disagreeing with me on? The tax thing, or something else. Taxes: Income tax-let's say 30% Social Security tax Sales tax Sin tax Etc. Those are the taxes we are responsible for. Now unless you barter to receive all of your goods, you're paying for items that themselves have been taxed, and now you pay a sales tax for them too. Really not a difficult concept to realize that every item purchased has been taxed on it's way to being manufactured. One of my Economic professors clued me into this in college. Oh, and
there is simply no way in hell that you lose 70% of your income to taxation. thats just silly. come on.
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/5/51/2...+and+public+indebtedness+-+EO74+Annex+Tables+ What part of total tax burden do you not understand? The 30% figure is the total (state, federal, local) tax receipts relative to GDP. And what kind of dumbass economics teacher is telling you this? Especially the part about the VAT system that you described....I'm pretty sure the US does not apply a VAT system like in Europe. A Where did you generate this 70 percent figure? Were you in the right class? or were you learning about the Swedish economy and got confused?
What part of my example do you not understand. I guess I'll give an example. You go to the store to buy a pencil. The grocery store has to pay taxes too, you know? The grocery raises the price of the pencil to pay for their taxes.The grocery store doesn't make pencils, it buys them from a pencil company. The Pencil company pays taxes which are incorporated into the price of their product. Now since the pencil co. doesn't have a pencil making tree, they go to other manufacturers for their supplies. The Wood for example, has to be purchased from some other distributor, which also pays taxes which they also incorporate into their product. Etc, etc., and so on. Does that help?
Fatty: I didn't actually post to disagree with anything. I'm having too much fun watching the rest of you go at it. I was really just trying to get you to post so I could kill you in the spelling game. Done and done.
No, it doesn't help me too much at all. I'm aware that taxation occurs (in general) on taxable transactions whenever value is realized. What I want to know is where you came up with a 70% figure. GDP = The total market value of all final goods and services produced in a country in a given year. http://www.investorwords.com/2153/GDP.html Total US Government Federal, State, and local tax and non-tax receipts as a % of GDP = ~30%
Sorry, pal. Check the spelling thread. Got you on the its/it's rule. If it makes you feel better, I might be dead too -- though on a pretty bogus call in my opinion.
