Surprise! Surprise! Democrats fiscal responsibility bill “PAYGO”

Some people will believe anything ... Let's see it happen first.

During the Clinton administration, it was the Republican Congress that brought spending down. It is probably true that the party not in the WH will be more fiscally conservative so as to maintain some power.

 

You know, I would love to believe that those people in Washington have finally figured out that the average American has more respect for a snake oil salesman than for a Washington politician. I would love to believe that these people will know behave in a responsible fashion with "our" money. However I am not holding my breath waiting for either of those things to actually happen. I will only believe any of them when I see their words put into action over a period of time. Last night I watched Bush basically admit that he has mishandled Iraq and now, four years after our troops first entered Iraq, we are starting yet another strategy. He wants to spend millions more dollars, and probably at least a thousand more American lives to fix his mistake. Will the democrats stop any of that? Probably not. Our hard earned money, and way too many American lives, are being wasted on the Iraqis. I will not give this administration another chance to regain my support, Bush cannot restore my "faith" in him or his policies. As far as I am concerned we would have been better off if Gore had been put in the White House in '00. George W Bush, who I voted for twice, has been a terrible president.

I am not sure that I will be voting for president in '08. However right now I am leaning toward John Edwards (D) even though I disagree with his positions on abortion and healthcare. Why not? After all Bush (R) has done nothing to help solve any of those problems. He has been way too busy nation building in Iraq to deal with problems at home. The Republican party, at this time, does not have anyone running that I can/will support.

 

So let's see if I understand you: Life is precious ... so long as it is American?

What if the French had felt that way in the early 1780s?

How many people did Saddam need to kill before it was justified to step in?

How many of our airmen did Saddam need to shoot at before it was justified to respond?

Since you don't like where Bush drew the line, where would you draw it?

 

==That is not the issue. The issue is whether it is constitutional for Bush, or any president, to use our military to defend/build other nations. My answer to that question is always NO. That is our military, supported by our tax dollars, and manned by our citizens. There is no reason for them to be spending our money, and spilling our blood, to defend any nation other than our own.

==The French are not Americans. They make their own laws and choices.

==There are many evil murderers in power around the world. It is not our job to go around over throwing them, nor is it our job to fix other countries problems.

==One. If Saddam had hit one of our airplanes we should have destroyed his capital buildings (etc). However I would argue that our planes should not have been there to start with.

==I would not have gone into Iraq in the first place. So I draw the line at 0.

 

That is simply not true. In all but one year the budgets passed by the Republican controlled Congress were actually LARGER than the budgets submitted by the Clinton administration.

 

As has been pointed out, fighting them there is better than fighting them here. Furthermore, historically, we have used our military to help other nations (cf. Japan and Germany after the war).

Yes, but as you recall, they shed their blood in our fight for freedom.

So life is not that important? I don't think we need to go to all of them. I think we spend way too much on foreign aid. But in Iraq, we had a different situation.

Your argument would be wrong. And our planes were shot at almost daily according to reports.

Fair enough. So why did we go into Germany in WWII? Was that also wrong? Why go into Japan? Why not just fight them when they came here?

I am not necessarily in favor of going into Iraq. Had we known then what we know now, we probably wouldn't have. But we didn't and you can't undo it. What we need to do now is finish the job.

 

Can you explain this to me?

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/data/appropriations.php

It seems to disagree with you.

The CATO institute also gives a different picture than you do. http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3750: "The GOP was once effective at controlling nondefense spending. The final nondefense budgets under Clinton were a combined $57 billion smaller than what he proposed from 1996 to 2001."

 

==And that somehow makes it constitutional?

==Point? As I said France makes their own laws and choices.

==How was it different?

==Our planes should not have been there and none of our planes were shot down.

==Japan attacked us and we responded. That was the right thing to do since we were defending ourselves.

==Yea, but Bush will not finish the job. He, like all of those folks in Washington, is content to just keep doing it the politically correct way. Our military could roll over Iraq tonight if Washington would let it.

 

It hasn't been found to be unconstitutional. Challenge it ... see what happens.

The point is that we are free because someone did what we are doing.

12 years of persistent refusal to follow UN sanctions. 20 years of brutal dictatorship that resulted in the cold-blooded murder of several hundred thousand at the dictates of one man. Stated intent to harm America, with the perceived ability to do so. Daily shooting at American military.

Why shouldn't our planes have been there? That was part of the cease fire agreement in the wake of the Gulf War. And being shot down shouldn't be the benchmark. The fact that you are willing to sacrifice a pilot's life before you will take action is disturbing to me. But I guess that's where we are different. I think you get proactive with things like this, not reactive.

We weren't defending ourselves when we were forcibly taking their islands in the Pacific. We were on the attack. Similarly, we were not defending America by invading Normandy. Those places were thousands of miles away, and the armies at those locations were less of a threat than Iraq.

And who exactly would we roll over? How would we tell who the enemy is? I agree that we need to turn loose a little bit, but this is an unconventional war. It will have no conclusion such as WWII did. Politically correct, in this case, seems to be a code word for trying to protect innocent civilians. Yes, we could bomb cities to the stone age (which wouldn't take much) and eradicate much of the insurgency. but along with it, kill civilians.

Surely you are not so naive as to think we can simply leave now. That would be an absurd move, by any calculation. We must continue to help Iraq get on its feet.

 

Originally Posted by Pastor Larry
Some people will believe anything ... Let's see it happen first.

During the Clinton administration, it was the Republican Congress that brought spending down. It is probably true that the party not in the WH will be more fiscally conservative so as to maintain some power.

That is simply not true. In all but one year the budgets passed by the Republican controlled Congress were actually LARGER than the budgets submitted by the Clinton administration.

Not just that; the GOP threatened to shut down the government, if Clinton didn't approve their budget-busting spending. Clinton stood firm, and the Republicans caved.

The result? Black ink for the first time since Reagan took office.

 

Total revisionism.

The GOP didn't "threaten" to shut down the government, the government was shut down. Clinton was hemming and hawing about the new Congress that was insisting on a balanced budget.

Refresher: http://www.cnn.com/US/9511/debt_limit/shutdown_politics/index.html

It was one of those compromises that everyone claims in retrospect to have "won". Clinton had a post Cold War peace dividend at his disposal, the GOP wanted tax cuts, he wanted increased domestic spending and military cuts.

 

Well, first, you are simply not credible on issues of politics. You seem too often to let your personal biases get in the way of the truth.

I gave two links on page 1 that disagree with your position, and asked for explanation. Why not explain them? Why not give some evidence to show you are right? I don't know if you are or not. Your track record predisposes me to think you are not. But I am willign to listen if you will show us some facts.