U.S Domestic Policies for the next 4 years

Politics International Politics
1

I need Bush supporters on this board to explain his domestic polcies to me and your views on it. Mainly regarding to tax cuts and tax reform, healthcare reform, and privatization for social securities. I heard many said they disagree with many of Bush’s policies but support him for other reasons. So it will be nice to know what policies the Bush supporters disagree with.

Also, I know many enjoyed the tax cuts and all, but do you think the tax cuts was worth it’s price, given that there were many arguments from the Democrats against the tax cuts, such as:

  1. Rather than take responsibility for our common future, Bush has shifted costs to states and communities, who then pass them on to you.
  2. Bush is largely to blame for the fiscal crisis that has forced states and communities to raise taxes and slash services.
  3. As a direct consequence of his tax policy, over six years an American family of four will take on $52,000 more in its share of the national debt.

I am not going to say I agree or disagree with these statements, but I am wondering if it can be used to explain why we have a Republican mayor here in New York who are raising taxes and slashing services like hell, and we ended up paying a lot more than what we supposedly get back from the tax cuts.

Also, the Republicans supposedly champion a smaller government and lower taxes, but contradictorily they end up spending more than the Democrats. So is the Democrats correct when they claim that Bush is being fiscally irresponsible? And is causing our national debt to go up?

2

Regarding his policies that I disagree with, they are immigration reform, particularly regarding the H1-B visa program, and his caving in to every spending bill that came his way. Bush should have rejected the Medicare prescription drug giveaway, most of the increased spending on education (which is almost entirely wasted), and the various tariffs he put in place (such as the one on imported steel). He should have severely limited the H1-B visa program, perhaps restricting it to university professors or foreign workers with PhDs; as H1-B stands right now, it has destroyed the domestic software engineering labor market by allowing companies to hire Indian S/W engineers so easily and at such low rates that American workers aren’t even considered for the jobs that are staying in-country. Meanwhile, companies are offshoring every software job that they can move.

Regarding Bloomberg, sorry mate, but he’s what is called a RINO – a “Republican In Name Only”. He’s a Democrat who took the Republican Party affiliation just so that he could run for office with a bunch of assistance from the party. There are plenty of these idiots around, including Senator Chafee, Senator Olympia Snowe, Bob Kustra. . . . Remember Jim Jeffords, the “Republican” Senator from Vermont, who dumped the RP within weeks of the 2000 election in exchange for some nice promises from the Democrats? Unfortunately, in some areas (like NYC), there is simply no way a conservative Republican can win an election, so the Republican Party gets stuck with idiots like Bloomberg.

As for some of Bush’s plans, one is to partially privatize Social Security, meaning that, according to what he’s said in the past, he wants to allow people to divert part of their SS tax dollars to private, individually-owned accounts. Currently, all SS taxes get dumped into the government’s general fund and are immediately spent by Congress. bush wants to make it so that individuals actually OWN what they put in. This can only be good for the individual workers.

Under the current SS system, you have zero right to any of the money you contribute. If you don’t put in enough “qualifying quarters” (I think that’s the correct term), then you never see a dime of that money back.

A friend of mine immigrated with his parents from Lebanon to the U.S. His father died about eight years after they moved to the U.S. His mother didn’t get a dime from Social Security, even though her husband had paid into it for seven years, until he became too ill to work. All of the money that he contributed went to other people.

Under an ownership system such as Bush proposes, that money would have been inherited by her, and made her remaining years a little more comfortable.

3

what about bushes nazi act, where snitching on people reading something unusual is seen as patriotic. The US is destroying its constitution and is further away from what is should stand for. FBI visiting people for what they are reading is a waste of time and money. But that is only a snippet. When will the Bush Youth form?

atlanta.creativeloafing.com/2003-07-17/rant.html

4

“Nazi act”? Wow, that is a rational expression of your disagreement.

I really detest extremists like you. You make the rest of us who lean more to the left politically look like retards. Do you really expect anyone to take you seriously when you can’t even take your own argument seriously enough to be rational about it?

By the way - Godwin’s Law. You lose.

5

i don’t support left or right.

godwins law - i don’t give a flying f@ck about that. to appease such crap. i’ll use “commie act” instead, it should please you as you lean to the “left”

6

7

Checkmate apparently.

8

[quote=“cake”]I don’t support left or right.

godwins law - I don’t give a flying f@ck about that. to appease such crap. I’ll use “commie act” instead, it should please you as you lean to the “left”[/quote]

I stand corrected; you’re not one of those people that make the left look retarded, you’re one of those people may actually be retarded.

By the way, you can actually write “fuck” here.

Now, we return you to your regularly scheduled thread. And probably the Flounder Forum too.

9

Whatever the precise source and inspiration of Bush’s “act” may be, I don’t consider the loss of American liberties under the Patriot Act to be “American” whatsoever. The government (state, local, federal) has no business sticking its nose into the expression of ideas, reading material, library lists, video rentals, and so on. Indefinite, unchallengeable detentions are also offensive to me as an American.

The United States is a great nation, and as part of that it’s “big” enough to take in criticism and differing viewpoints on the path toward smarter, better policies. Part of what has made America “great” is its ability to function as a meritocracy and as a magnet for pretty much whatever our free economy needs, regardless of its source. Some people might think it’s “liberal” to be tolerant of others, but I see it as economic reality.

10

Cake:

Interesting Tommy Tomorrow, but I don’t think that anyone is losing their constitutional rights to speak anywhere in America. Rather it is the opposite. Try being a Republican and a Bush supporter and try to explain your views at any bar, any dinner party or any social gathering and see who is yelling who down. Just try it any old time. I do not recall ever hearing a Republican threatening to kick someone’s ass or any other such stuff because of the Democrat’s political views. I think this kind of intolerance on the left is VERY prevalent and please remember that Hitler was not a conservative. The Fascist parties of Germany and Italy were also socialist. They nationalized industry and also were very keen to educate people to a kind of “political correctness.” Does this sound like the Republicans to you or the Democrats? Finally, what is wrong with being patriotic? No one asked the Left to be patriotic, we cannot really expect that can we but we can ask them to understand that we are proud of our country and do not blame it for every single ill on the planet. Curious too that the Left is so easy to forgive and forget Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and any of the numerous communists that have trashed the planet and killed millions but oh boy let one corporation have a chemical spill etc and you would think that Hitler had been let loose on the world again.

11

For the last 2+ years I have asked a wide range of people just what “rights or liberties” they have personally lost because of the “Patriot Act”.

As of yet, I have not had one person give a specific answer. No one seems to be able to tell me what they have lost. They seem to think they could lose something. But they are damn vague about what that loss might consist of.

Self-induced hypochondriacal paranoia.

…hmmm…that may be a redundant sentence…I blame only myself.

12

[quote=“Tetsuo”]“Nazi act”? Wow, that is a rational expression of your disagreement.

I really detest extremists like you. You make the rest of us who lean more to the left politically look like retards. Do you really expect anyone to take you seriously when you can’t even take your own argument seriously enough to be rational about it?

By the way - Godwin’s Law. You lose.[/quote]

The Nazis started this way too. Homeland Security, the Patriot Act - that’s how you do it, one step at a time.

Pre-Nazi Germany was a democracy, and Hitler was voted into office. He was a “man of the people” and hugely popular with the working class.

Subsequent elections were rigged, even though the Nazis didn’t have the benefit of Liebold voting machines. There was the burning of the Reichstag (Karl Rove would love a maneuver like that). Later on, elections were done away with altogether. Most people didn’t notice their freedom slipping away until it was gone.

Of course, the Republicans would never use such tactics. Right?

ocnus.net/cgi-bin/exec/view. … &num=14508

Just keep repeating to yourself, “It can’t happen here,” and everything will be OK.

The only advice I have to give right now: don’t buy real estate in Tehran.

Robert

13

Robert:

Then if the Bush = Hitler comparison is apt, why don’t you give me an example of how Bush has acted like Hitler. Has anyone’s constitutional rights been taken away? Is the liberal media suddenly being muzzled? Are we invading countries willy nilly for territorial aggression? If it is all about oil, why didn’t we keep Kuwait and invade Saudi Arabia instead? These comparisons are loathsome and if Democrats keep this up, they will lose the next election as well perhaps by even bigger margins. Time for the Left to come up with some solutions and some constructive plans rather than just march and protest about Bush = evil. Talk about ignorance. Incredible that these are the very people looking down their noses at the ignorant masses in the interior. Just how intelligent is your average liberal arts graduate from college these days? Noam Chomsky? Michael Moore? Bush is a Nazi? Ashcroft is stealing our constitutional rights? Sheesh talk about ignorant.

14

How about this poor schmuck: Wear a pro-peace T-shirt in certain malls, and you get arrested. He’s not making a ruckus, not doing anything more than wearing a T-shirt inside the same mall where he bought the T-shirt. edition.cnn.com/2003/US/Northeas … rest.reut/

You have to expect that the enormous frustration with inept Bush policies will come out. All these people, being so polite all day in their offices while they watch Bush screw up again and again… never saying anything until a neocon shows up at the dinner party and tells them that the war in Iraq is the greatest thing since sliced bread. However, keep in mind that these poor guys are also stuck having to explain U.S. foreign policy to angry non-Americans all the time, trying to defend post-9/11 America while seething that the Bush administration has often done things that have made defending the U.S. harder to do. Indefinite detentions? Abu Ghraib? Steel tarriffs?

Republicans regularly question the patriotism of anybody who questions the wisdom of the Bush administration policies or tactics. We’re “traitors” because we don’t agree with the president? Screw that. We love the U.S. – we want it to do well and do good.

I hadn’t thought of it until you mentioned this now, but Bush also fails on most traditional “conservative” scorecards. What is your point, exactly?

I bet Mussolini’d be the first to arrest people for wearing “Italy Out of Ethiopia” T-shirts.

Definitely sounds like the Republicans.

Nothing. Don’t change the America I love into a place where we don’t tolerate free speech.

How about those of us who love our country and don’t want it to be used to create ills elsewhere on the planet? Or those of us who are so patriotic that we don’t want half our combat capabilities dumped into the middle of a desert to fight a war that has no relationship to U.S. security? Or those of us who want those troops available to take the fight right to the terror groups, wherever they are? Or those of us who love America so much that we don’t want our valuable resources spent on “Star Wars”-style missile defense boondoggles when airport and port security are still in a big mess. Some of us love the United States so wholeheartedly that we want our president to deal with real threats like North Korea instead of fake threats like Saddam’s Iraq.

The Left forgave and forgot? Maybe there’s a couple of far-lefties who like commie dictators, just as there’s some far-righties who like fascist dictators. What’s your point? The vast majority of Americans don’t like Stalin, Mao or Pol Pot.

If you’ve ever been near a chemical plant on a day when a spill has happened, you’d think a lot of things.

15

hahah MFGR:

Nice try but no cigar. So given that these liberals are frustrated, does that mean they also have the right to beat the children, beat the wife, commit rape and murder? I mean they were frustrated so that is acceptable right?

Second, this man was on private property. The mall can enforce whatever rules it wants. This is not a question of constitutional rights. Let me explain since this is obviously over your head. The fact that the story was reported by the media quite openly and freely and was not censored is an example of constitutional rights in action. Refusing to follow a dress code at work, in a restaurant or apparently at this mall is something else AND I do notice that this man was able to buy the shirt at the mall so … what exactly is your point regarding loss of rights.

Finally, I once again challenge you to find the tolerance for opposing views among your leftie brigade. Let’s say you were to go to a bar or restaurant in Taipei and strike up a conversation regarding politics. Let’s say I was to do the same. What are the chances do you think that Republicans would yell you down or threaten to beat you up? My experience is that most Republicans learned to shut up and be silent a long time ago or they would choose to agree to disagree, but what are the chances that a leftie liberal would start yelling about you being a Nazi or a let’s see how was this put to me recently “A Fucking Cunt?” Yes, I think that was what I was called 50 to 100 times by the last such representative of you and your ilk. So ironically, you are bewailing your loss of right with no proof but I am constantly intimidated and threatened for nothing so grand as to espouse my views but just for quietly saying I agree with Bush and voted for him. Talk about loss of rights. Who is being intimidated? shouted down? threatened?

Finally, it is easy to be a leftie or liberal in today’s world so much more difficult to be a Bush fan or a Republican. Why would we do this if we were not intelligent and well informed and had made a conscious decision? AND then we have to go through the difficulties of defending not to mention espousing our views? Why would anyone become Republican given the difficulties we face? Yet, for you and others of your ilk, you have been in communist or nazi knee jerk lockstep on these issues since you took your first Noam Chomsky or liberation theology course in your second rate liberal arts university. What’s the big deal? Where is your cleverness? bravery? devotion? dedication? commitment? You have it easy. All you do is sit around acting superior and complaining and yelling fuck the system. What do you do to improve anything? Where is your stand on any issue? What have you contributed to the world recently? Nothing. No wonder nihilism and moral equivalence pervade your very Derrida-doubting “existence.” Pathetic.

16

Jose Padilla for starters.

17

raises hand Sorry mate, got you on that one.

Not necessarily. People of all stripes make stupid decisions or do things without forethought all the time.

Why would anyone become Democrat when it means they have to go through the difficulties of hearing the most vocal Republicans constantly insult and berate them for that choice, and have to constantly listen to said Republicans rationalize their own decision while in the same breath calling a vast number of those who disagree fascists, communists, nazis, traitors, and idiots (although not always in so many words)?

And yourself Fred? What have you contributed to the world recently? And I don’t mean in the “Well I voted for Bush” sense, I mean you personally, since your question was quite obviously directed at MFGR personally.

18

First of all, congratulations Rascal on finding Jose Padilla. One person in the whole evil Patriot Act who has lots his rights even though he is meeting with lawyers and such now who was in the process of attempting to detonate a dirty bomb in a major US city.

I disagree that any Republican has yelled anyone down on this forum. Who are the ones that prefer using swearing and such most?

Finally, I have done A LOT both charitably, politically and in terms of economic reform. I am not going to get into details on this forum but I think my record speaks for itself. No one has EVER accused me of doing too little. I am very satisfied personally that I have certainly been a major contributor to any community where I have lived.

19

As much as I sympathize with the guy, but his arrest has nothing to do with the Patriot Act. I think the poor accident occurred because of the uneasy war time atmosphere and the unfortunate division in our country.

He was not arrested because of the t-shirt. He was arrested because of refusing to leave a private property when asked. Someone in the mall probably complaint about the t-shirt and the security guard overreacted. It was the security’s decision, and once police got call, there’s nothing they can do except asking you to leave or be arrested. The mall or any private property owner has the right to ask you to step way from their property, even if the reasons were stupid. You also have the right to wear anything you want, but if someone ask you to leave their property, you have to. It’s harsh but nevertheless nothing to do with Bush, any of his policies, or the Patriot Act. It’s just how things work.

I don’t think war against terrorism is a popularity contest. I agree 1/2 with Clinton when he said strength and wisdom are not opposing values. He was questioning Bush’s methods, arguing that we should be more wise and diplomatic, on our war against terrorism, instead just charging in blindly. But sometimes we have to make hard decisions to get the job done, even if that decision is bound to be unpopular with the rest of the world.

It’s better to our troops to fight there rather than at home, take it to them rather than just sitting home defending against another 9/11 attack. Otherwise things will never change. Also, the result counts, and the bottom line is, it is not wrong to free the Iraq’s millions of people. So the most important job is to finish the job in Iraq, so the world can see that even if we are wrong about the WMD, we are right about freeing Iraq. Another thing is that, the war on Iraq sent a clear message, a message that could not be send through diplomacy. That message is “do not harbor terrorists or you’ll get screw real bad by the U.S”. I think the message is loud and clear, effective and got across; a message that could not be ignored.

I don’t think North Korea is any threats at all, no more than Iraq was. What they going to do, lob missiles at us?

Anyway, I am not trying to defend Bush, just speaking my mind on how I see things. I was against the war against Iraq from the get-go because I thought it was funny when they tried to hype things up, it felt really strange as if trying to divert our attention and resources from Afgan, like our inability to catch that SOB whatever his fucked up name is who is responsible for the WTC tragedy. But I can’t stay anti-war anymore, if we in Iraq then we’ve to win, period. Nothing is going to change that fact, period. We’ve to win.

20

Blasphemy Steve 101:

You have quoted me fred smith as saying some kind of loony hippy shit. Please I beg of you edit your post to make notice of the fact that none of these statements from the loony zmag reading left are mind. Please I beg of you. The true poster is whatshisface.