GOP attack ads

[STING2]

Melon,

"Oh you crack me up. I wish Republicans would get consistent stories. If an economy is good, it *must* be the result of Republicans, even if they were the presidents before. If an economy is bad, it *must* be the result of Democrats, even if they were the presidents before."

You crack me up often because you find a way to link every problem in the USA with a man that was president 15 years ago. Inflation in the 1980s was brought down by the Fed Chairmans high interest rates, known as "Shock therapy". I know that the high unemployment and high inflation of the Carter years were not entirely his fault, but your explanation which gives him a free pass on these things that happened while he was in office and puts everything on the Republican administration before and the one after is simply inaccurate and not objective.

Seabird had a lot of interesting things to say. Take the party blinders off and pull up a seat.

 

[melon]

So Melon, you don't believe that with age comes a certain bit of wisdom? Why do you find it so hard to believe that she might know more about it than yoy, when you were 1 when Reagan took office and 8 or 9 when he left (you told me that yourself). Everything you know is from your books and your newspaper articles and TV programs. She experienced it as an adult. From what Seabird says, she sounds like she kept up with it at the time and was in the know.

If she comes back telling me where she lived, then maybe we can have a discussion. My bets are on the South / "Sun Belt." I guess I talk as an embittered Northerner, whose father lost his good paying job, due to corporate bankruptcy--due to executive embezzlement. Thank goodness the union had been on strike the year prior and secured a 401K-based retirement fund, otherwise he would have lost it entirely. Pardon me if I don't share in the Reagan love fest, but don't think that I'm sitting on my laurels. I'll have amassed enough expensive pieces of paper that I'll be more educated than 99% of the U.S. After all, that really was one of the lasting legacies of that decade.

Don't be so pedantic to assume that all my experiences of Reagan come from the media. If I had lied from the beginning about my age and was really fifty years old, what would you have said then about what I have written?

Melon

 

[melon]

You crack me up often because you find a way to link every problem in the USA with a man that was president 15 years ago. Inflation in the 1980s was brought down by the Fed Chairmans high interest rates, known as "Shock therapy". I know that the high unemployment and high inflation of the Carter years were not entirely his fault, but your explanation which gives him a free pass on these things that happened while he was in office and puts everything on the Republican administration before and the one after is simply inaccurate and not objective.

Seabird had a lot of interesting things to say. Take the party blinders off and pull up a seat.

Am I giving Carter a free pass? Not at all, but I find it very difficult to believe that all of that happened, because of him.

I merely wish to enact what the GOP supposedly stood for: fiscal solvency. But that was always a bunch of bullshit. It has always been a trade-off between social welfare by the Democrats and corporate welfare / militarism by the Republicans. The latter just happens to be far more expensive.

Melon

 

[melon]

For the last several days, the GOP party has been running attack ads against one of thier own.
Senator Voinivich of Ohio has consistently voted to approve only 350B in tax cuts and only with 50b in spending for state budget relief.
The ads invoke Reagan ( the creator of the largest deficit until now) as his tax cut creating 15m jobs. The ending has a picture of Kennedy Reagan, and Dubyah.

I guess if you are a member of the GOP you aren't allowed to vote your conscience. "With us or against us." Personally I think it is intolerable and a sad statement of that party.

I'm curious what the others think, especially the Repuiblicans here.

Anyway, to actually answer the original topic, it's how they whip everyone into shape. If you're looking for an example of the Democrats doing it, they don't do it very often, but they did do it to former Rep. James Traficant (D-Ohio), who was the sole Democrat to vote for Rep. Dennis Hastert as Speaker of the House in 2001. They went as far to all but boot him out of the party for that little stunt. Traficant always was an attention seeker, though, and Democrats certainly shed no tears in booting him out of the House after that prison sentence he got (was it bribery? I forgot...).

If you're looking for "tolerance" in politics, I think you're barking up the wrong tree. It's a game. Democrats tout inclusiveness and tolerance, while not doing anything about it, and Republicans use Christianity, while creating a large war budget and killing prisoners. Each party does have their selling points I guess.

I must admit that it is pretty harsh, but the Republican Party needs to make up for lost time on their cultural revolution. After all, Clinton spoiled their party and there's always fears that Dubya will share a similar fate as his father. It's time to crank up the rhetoric. Civilians who oppose him are terrorist sympathizers and Democrats...well, we all know that most of them are probably French anyway. But why should the all-powerful Bush Administration have any tolerance for dissent within his own ranks? There's a war, and those who aren't with him are clearly against him.

Melon

 

[STING2]

Melon,

"I merely wish to enact what the GOP supposedly stood for: fiscal solvency. But that was always a bunch of bullshit. It has always been a trade-off between social welfare by the Democrats and corporate welfare / militarism by the Republicans. The latter just happens to be far more expensive."

If you look at the democratic party in the 1960s, the above characterization would be turned on its head. The JFK/LBJ administrations out spent the previous Republican administrations on military spending. They also were more active on the military front than Ike had been. Certainly this extra spending created deficits and increased the national debt, but National Security was improved and the poverty rate was reduced.

We should also remember that if Jimmy Carter had won in 1980, he would have been increasing the military budget as well, just not to the degree that Reagan did.

I would not support any administration that would put a balanced budget over the immediate needs of national security or the economy.

 

[melon]

I would not support any administration that would put a balanced budget over the immediate needs of national security or the economy.

There is a difference between "immediate needs" and excessive tax cuts, coupled with excessive spending.

Melon

 

[STING2]

There are two things that require heavy spending and tax cuts. Heavy spending is needed to fight a war. Tax cuts are needed to get the economy moving again.

 

[melon]

There are two things that require heavy spending and tax cuts. Heavy spending is needed to fight a war. Tax cuts are needed to get the economy moving again.

I disagree with both, more so with the latter than the former. I have grown to believe that an increase in military spending was needed to update our military from the man-intensive Vietnam War era to "technological" warfare. I believe that it is time for another update to "smart" warfare. What I do question, however, is military waste. There has always been the long-running joke about the $90,000 toilet, and, if anything, I think the military is in need of a major audit.

Tax cuts, however, I think have been excessive and targeted to the wrong entities. There were plenty of Fortune 500 companies paying little to no taxes before these current rounds of tax cuts; so are we suddenly going to start giving them rebates? Of course, with the airline industry, I guess we already have. That tax cut mentality isn't going to erase fiscal irresponsibility that has shaken stock market confidence, nor is it going to erase the massive debt they accumulated during the 1990s. The only tax cuts that may actually mean anything would be payroll tax cuts, as that would potentially drive consumer spending, but I don't see good old Dubya doing anything substantial about that--but, yet, he proposed dividend tax cuts. We can clearly see where his priorities lie. "Trickle-down economics" has been a joke all along, but I guess no one has informed the Bush family yet.

Anyhow, that's really all I have to contribute to this topic. It has certainly been quite interesting, but I need a real break from the blue crack here. A civil and intelligent argument, as usual, STING2...

Melon

 

[Scarletwine]

Ummmm....The last part of your statement clearly demonstrates that you are not moderate

No that's just your opinion

Actually I remember the gas lines of Carter but also the Peace Agreement he helped foster.

As for Reagan I remember the rampant consumerism and mostly Irangate every afternoon on TV. Oli North was a traitor, and I'm not sure Reagan wasn't also, at least in his complicity or oversight.
My "favorite" patriotic channel has a convicted traitor as one of their war consultants