We know that President Obama and the Democrats would dearly love to run against President Bush again — it worked well enough for them in 2008, even though Mr Bush was retiring — and our local liberal is trying it again:
Interestingly, Romney is considering as his VP two of Bush’s budget directors, Mitch Daniels and Robert Portman.
If this is not enough, Romney is surrounding himself with Bush people. Moreover, there is Republican noise for Jeb Bush for VP, with some even wanting a brokered convention to nominate Jeb to run against President Obama!
And then Romney’s economic advisers, Greg Mankew and Glenn Hubbard, both chief economists for Bush. His health adviser, Lanhee Chen, worked on health policy for Bush – remember Medicare Part D, which was off-budget, adding to the deficit.
It is true that the Obama WH has plenty of Clinton people, they did not act in lock-step to Clinton policy, crafting the stimulus to counteract the economic depression, and enacting the P&P ACA, otherwise known as ObamaCare.
After this somewhat humorous attempt to separate the Obama minions from their Clinton past — and at least the budget was balanced during President Clinton’s last few years, which would be a positive — your Editor notes that the Obama people who came from the Clinton White House are about as far from the Clinton policies as possible: they have gone from being part of an Administration which, with the help of a Republican-controlled Congress, had balanced the budget to an Administration which has run the biggest deficits since World War II.
On the contrary, the Romney-Bush people are planning to reinstitute the Bush policies as follows:
The Romney campaign’s rethink has been shallower. The candidate’s platform calls for extending all the Bush tax cuts and then adding more. It calls for repealing many of the new financial regulations but says nothing about what it would put in their place. The difference is that Romney talks much more about deficit reduction than Bush did and spends much less time emphasizing policies to reform the education system or expand health-care options for seniors. Where Bush sold himself as a “compassionate conservative,” Romney has sold himself as “severely conservative.”
Thus, it is as if Romney is unaware of the awful economic times we have been through, as his emerging program seems to focus on returning us to the same flawed Bush economic policies with many of the same old Bush people involved. This man Romney is a tsunami in the making; the American people need to understand and reject a regurgitation of the Bush disaster!
Your Editor finds Wagonwheel’s logic somewhat perplexing. He tells us that, as President, Mitt Romney would return to the Bush Administration policies, right after he tells us that he wouldn’t. The worst of the Bush policies was the wholly profligate spending, precisely the thing that Governor Romney tells us he would curtail. Governor Romney has promised to cut federal government spending from the 24.3% of GDP it was in FY2011 to less than 20% of GDP, “in line with the historical trend between 18 and 20 percent.”1 Governor Romney promises to close the gap between spending and revenue by cutting spending,2 and even Wagonwheel has said that it is “pathetic” that the national debt increased increased so much under President Bush.
Instead, Wagonwheel continues to support President Obama, who plans for increased federal spending (never less than 22.3% of GDP), and running huge deficits every year as far into the future as he could project. The interesting point to note is that President Obama and his budgetary plans — if they can reasonably be called plans — are even worse than what Wagonwheel criticized when done under the Bush Administration. Wagonwheel called a national debt of 120% of GDP “unsustainable,” though once that was pointed out to him, he changed his mind, saying, “debt at 120% of GDP turned out to be sustainable for us in the 1940′s, so at 100% we’re OK for the near term.” The obvious differences being that, in 1946, we owed the money to ourselves, and not to China, and that, after the war, we were committed to balancing the budget and paying down the debt, while President Obama wants to keep borrowing and keep borrowing and keep borrowing.
President Obama, as you can see in the video, promised to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first — and hopefully last — term.3 The President, in that video, sounds very calm and cool and prudent and reasonable; he said words your Editor could wholeheartedly support. He said, quite wisely, that “we cannot simply spend as we please and defer the consequences to the next budget and the next Administration or the next generation.” The problem is that President Obama’s actions in no way match President Obama’s words. If his actions had matched his words, there would be no TEA Party, and the Democrats would still control the House of Representatives, and the President’s re-election would not be in doubt. If his actions had matched his words, the Democrats would stand firmly established as the party of fiscal responsibility, at least for the near future. But we are heading down the road trod by the Greeks because his actions have been almost directly the opposite of the wise words he uttered.
When I listen to what Senator Obama said, during his 2008 campaign, I can see why millions of Americans voted for him. When I listen to his words, I can hear mostly moderate sounding proposals. When I listen to Senator Obama tell us that $4 trillion of additional national debt run up under President Bush was irresponsible and unpatriotic, I hear words that I can support.
And who knows, maybe Mr Obama actually believed what he was saying at the time, but whether he believed it or not, his actual performance and his policy proposals come nowhere close to matching his rhetoric and his promises. There are really only two possibilities: either the man completely lied about his intentions, or he has been totally inept in his job performance. But in neither case does he deserve to be re-elected.
____________________________________
- Your Editor thinks that Mr Romney’s numbers are too high; total federal spending should be less than 18% of GDP, not between 18 and 20%. ↩
- Your Editor thinks that this is not ambitious enough, that we shouldn’t be “Close to the tax revenue generated by the economy when healthy,” but less than revenue. ↩
- This was in February of 2009, so there can be no complaint that he didn’t know that the recession was coming. ↩
After dealing with this fellow for years now, and after witnessing his shameless behavior in, say for example, the relatively recent comment section of your “From around the blogroll” entry, it’s clear that you could not really find his shrugging hypocrisy, or his convenient moral subjectivism, perplexing.
If so, then take a few moments to review his despicable activity in the aforementioned entry; and I am sure that if you do, any residual perplexity you may be experiencing regarding this person’s interest in intellectual coherence, honest argumentation, standard rules of inference, or even minimal truthfulness, will vanish once and for all.
Sincerely,
DNW
DNW is the academic amongst us, whereas I’m the Irish brawler (complete with red hair and red beard). Let me distill (for you Kentuckians and West (by gosh) Virginians) DNW’s academia words into words normal people can understand (and hopefully mentally depraved people like Perry from Lose, Delaware, can understand, too).
If yer cornfuzzled by Perry’s hypocritical, hyper-partisan, Socialist lies about what he claims he wants out of everyone not named Perry and not living in Lose, Delaware, all ya gotsta do is read what the lying asshat wrote in the recent “From around the blogroll” thread. If’n yer still cornfuzzled about Perry, yer not readin’ all his tall tales he already told.
When listenin’ ta good ol’ Perry of Lose, Delaware, ya gotsta wear yer hip waders an’ stand on the roof o’ the trailer, or yer gonna get sucked into the quagmire he’s livin’ in.
He’s that rooster that tried to sire a mare by ridin’ on the back o’ yer sow.
The ultimate erudite wingnut whacko has pontificated through his clenched teeth with another meaningless message on here, to wit:
Exactly what “shrugging hypocrisy” are you talking about, DNW? Example please!
Exactly what “convenient moral subjectivism” (sic) are you talking about, DNW? Example please!
Exactly what “residual complexity” are you talking about, DNW? Example please!
Why must you behave in such an obtuse manner? Answer: DNW was too lazy to articulate his criticisms with examples. Would you expect your students to appreciate being lectured to with this lazy approach?
Because of your mention, I reread that entire thread, and remain satisfied with my responses.
Incidentally Mr Hitchcock, Lewes is pronounced like Louis, not Lose.
Perry, the examples you say you seek are not only legion, (no long-term reader here, including you, is confused or unconvinced of the accuracy of DNW’s observations) the examples are also as close as your reflection in the nearest mirror.
In fact, your typically disingenuous dodge of denial followed by requests for citations or demands for exact Examples please! ad nauseum is tantamount to a confession of guilty as charged, at least so far as the admission applies to snakes.
Perry, you’re a stupid man, and you’ve hoisted yourself on your own petard. DNW set the trap, baited it with the truth of your often demonstrated shortcomings, and waited patiently for you hang yourself. Which you did in spades.
He’s doing it on purpose. It flew right over your lobotomized head.
Incidentally, Perry, you (sic) someone when they use improper spelling or grammar (most often with the spelling), not when they did it right.
Hogwash, ropelight. It’s all partisan political with you, otherwise you would respond to others in a similar manner, when appropriate.
Re DNW’s comments, of course you would deem them accurate without examples. The fact that he used no examples, except a generic reference to my comments throughout a particular thread, should be construed as meaningless by reasonable people. But you clearly are not one of those reasonable people.
You will note that DNW followed up with none, because he considers his erudite self to be above such mundane things. Again, it’s all political.
You will also note that DNW rarely provides a citation to back up his pontifications, as if he himself is like a pope, the epitome of arrogance.
Regarding falling into a trap, DNW has fallen into my trap, since again he has not responded to my specific requests for examples. His approach, ropelight, does not win debates, except with his own unthinking political acolytes, like yourself as an example!
There goes koolo with one more of his personal insults. Some school teacher this!
Many times I have encountered mispronouncements of my current home town, especially from those out of our state. Apparently it does not meet muster with our school teacher here to offer a correction. Why? Because the correction was made by someone koolo hates with a passion. Again, some school teacher this.
Once again, I only follow example you set. One can only conclude, based on your behavior in this forum, that you didn’t last as a school teacher due to your over-the-top passive-aggressive disorder. You were most probably deemed a danger to the kids you were “teaching.”
Some school teacher, that.
Pot, kettle.
Pot, kettle.
Pot, kettle.
Pot, kettle.
Pot, kettle.
You really are delusionally clueless.
Next!
No doubt, like a pig rooting through its swill, you are content. Your satisfaction though, is not the issue. Nor does your own satisfaction with your behavior and method constitute a worthwhile public standard.
Your never-ending imagining that it does however, is the issue.
Look here you son-of-a-bitch, you want plain spoken? I’ll give it to you. Forget all your clashes with Koolo and John; place all of your other dealings aside as well.
What you did in that thread was to provoke an extended controversy on the basis of completely false and now discredited premises which you had uncritically absorbed from agenda driven news, and probably from an opportunistic family lawyer, and bloggers with an axe to grind.
And you did it in order to drive an ideological line based on those false and fraudulent premisses.
You, broaching the matter:
“Murder”, by a “self-appointed vigilante”, you said.
Thus, you not only brought it up, you misleadingly framed the situation in your first comment, so as to enable you to launch off with insinuations of racist intent against the Editor.
When the Editor offered his demurrer on the basis of not having the facts, you grandly announced in suitably prosecutor-like tones: “I think we know enough to conclude that the perp …”
The “perp”. Add that to a “self-appointed vigilante” who had committed “murder”.
And you then had the gall to speak of commenting “responsibly” once you found out you had crawled out on a limb that was unlikely to support your entire weight?
Yeah, yeah, you later, obviously, began to pick up on some of the emerging details; such as that little detail wherein it seemed likely that Trayvon had in fact physically attacked Zimmerman. You even rushed to mention it. Better get it out there yourself before someone bashes you over the head with it …
But you then also began, while still ‘cautioning’ everyone to let justice seek its course, peddling the line that “Trayvon’s space” had been invaded, and insinuating that Trayvon’s assault on Zimmerman was justified thereby.
Damn, you are a despicable and conscienceless piece of work.
We still don’t know all the facts about this assault and killing; and may never know all of them.
But what we do know is that you Perry, in a completely irresponsible and morally bankrupt manner began piling on, and pitching a falsely shaped premise for your own political ends: with no regard at all for deliberative justice, nor with any sense of personal or moral responsibility for what you were doing …
And you did it all on your own initiative.
It’s years of similar behavior to this which have proven what you are, Perry.
They have proven that there is no point in even trying to reason with someone like you.
I’d finish by saying F–k you, but you are simply not worth it.
Hope that that is plainspoken enough for you.
Now let us see how DNW debates:
* No doubt, like a pig rooting through its swill, you are content.
* Look here you son-of-a-bitch, you want plain spoken?
* Damn, you are a despicable and conscienceless piece of work.
* I’d finish by saying F–k you, but you are simply not worth it.
If all this were self-evident, you would not bother responding. Obviously, you are erudite, but a liar nonetheless, and unimpressive.
Look back here:
You know that to be true, DNW. I wrote that at the outset of our discussion in that thread. Then why all your needless grandstanding?
Then later on in the same thread, I wrote this:
So DNW, your depiction based on a lot of allegations out of context, laced with your personal attacks, is not worth much in terms of being influential for your point of view.
You seem to think that your supposed elevated position thus qualifies the reader to take your word for anything you write. I’ve got news for you, DNW, it doesn’t, because the approbation of the likes of koolo and Hitchcock is meaningless, because just like you, they are right wing partisan hacks/wackos, the only difference being that you are erudite in your writing. That difference is insignificant in terms of believability, in my opinion.
And given that it’s known that “your opinion” is so far beyond left field as to put you in another reality, who gives a flying f*** what that opinion is, moonbat?
You do, koolo, because you are obsessed, just like Hube, a mental flaw that deserves attention, and indeed pathetic for a school teacher to behave in this manner. It is reasonable to propose that this same behavior occurs in your classroom, assuming that you do not suffer from multiple personality syndrome.
Regarding my behavior being “so far beyond left field”, exactly what positions which I take are they which cause you to reach such a conclusion, I ask? Be specific, koolo!
Is it because I am against preemptive strikes on sovereign nations, and in favor of wars only when diplomatic options have been exhausted?
Is it because I am in favor of taking loopholes out of our federal tax system, including offshore accounts set up in order that American citizens are able to avoid paying taxes to America? And that I oppose the Norquist pledge?
Is it because I favor an affordable and competitive health insurance system in with all Americans are insured?
Is it because I support unemployment insurance for folks who have lost their jobs and cannot find work?
Is it because I support feeding our children in school who would otherwise go without enough food?
Is it because I favor reducing our bloated DoD budget?
Is it because I think that our banks must be required to have more reserves? And that I support the Volcker Rule? And that I support Glass-Steagall?
Is it because I wish for you and yours to have Social Security and Medicare as we know it when you retire?
Is it because I support a vastly improved education system and favor making teacher’s salaries more attractive in order to attract the highest caliber of teachers into the profession?
Is it because I oppose the idea that a corporation is a person regarding campaign contributions, and that they can hide their contributions by supporting Super PACs.
Is it because I support some federal funding support for public broadcasting and for the arts?
Is is because I oppose the War on Women which is emerging in terms of Republican policy on legal reproductive rights, on equal pay for equal work, and on the defense of marriage?
Just exactly what is it, koolo?
The fact of the matter is that you are so far on the extreme right, as evidence by your utter hatred of our President in particular, and that any Dem policy by definition is socialistic or communistic, and that Fox News is fair and balanced, and that Rush Limbaugh is honorable, and that anyone who does not agree with you is a moonbat. Do you propagandize your students in like manner on these issues, koolo?
It is reasonable to propose you beat the sh** out of your wife at home, based upon your passive-aggressive personality syndrome here, SINP. Turnabout, natch.
You could have saved all the needless typing, SINP. I’ll make it easy for you: 1) you believe the 2000 election was “stolen.” 2) you believe the 2004 election was “stolen.” 3) you consider anyone who doesn’t subscribe to your notion of “what’s best for America” as unpatriotic and un-American. 4) you blame any criticism of Obama as “racist.” 5) you constantly berated Pres Bush for his disdain for the Constitution, yet consider Obama the “greatest president of our generation.”
And I could go on and on.
You mean like the only radical moonbat who insists on “pushing back” in here? Obsessed like that?
Koolo wrote:
Would that that were true, but it isn’t. I will guarantee you that President Obama will receive at least 40% of the popular vote; a substantial minority of Americans, at the very least, hold political views which are left-of-center, and not a few of them very left-of-center.
WW is a very passionate advocate for his opinion — as is everybody here — and his opinion is very different from those of most readers of this site, but it would be a horrible mistake to think that his opinions aren’t, to one extent or another, widely shared.
What you wrote doesn’t contradict what I stated; indeed, as you note, just b/c SINP is a radical nut doesn’t mean [many] others aren’t like him. Hell, about 1/3 of registered Democrats believed that Bush knew in advance of 9/11. I don’t think SINP has ever agreed w/those idiots, but his election conspiracies sure make up for it.
WW asks:
Teachers’ salaries have risen dramatically already, yet there is little evidence to suggest that such has improved our educational system. And if you believe that we must raise teachers’ pay even more to “attract the highest caliber of teachers into the profession,” are you not concomitantly saying that the people who are teaching now are inadequate and should all be fired?
That you oppose freedom of speech, and allowing the federal government to criminalize speech, is something I would consider very radical, yes.
That might not make you so far left as to be in another reality, but it certainly demonstrates our budgetary problems. We are having to borrow over a trillion dollars a year, in part because people like you want to spend money on things which might be nice, but are not necessities. If we ended all subsidies for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, then those radio and television stations would have to survive in the real world of commercial television; there is nothing wrong with that, and in all probability they would survive. If art is good, it will find a market and be successful; if art is not good enough to find a market and be self-supporting, then it does not merit being propped up by government spending.
As noted in another story, the real war on women is being waged not by Republican politicians, but irresponsible men and a society which has encouraged women to be as irresponsible as men.
Nor are you advocating contraception, which no Republican of any stature has said he would push to make illegal; you are advocating using the power of the federal government to force people and institutions which may not believe that artificial contraception is moral to pay for it anyway.
Programmed O-Bot. Gets TPM downloaded daily.