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October 24, 2006
The President's Campaign Message . . . Say What?
His message, according to a writer for the well-respected nonpartisan "Cook Report," is this:
“Don’t make it about me . . . . Remember that you guys are Republican at your core. Remember what happens when you elect Democrats.”
Okay, I'll bite. What does happen, Mr. President?
1. A balanced budget. And that's bad because . . . why? Oh, yeah, that was only when we had a Democrat in the White House. My mistake.
2. The highest level of economic growth since, well, the post-WWII boom. Oops. My mistake again. That was when a Democrat was in the White House.
3. Maybe the lowest level of poverty in our history. Damn. That was when a Democrat was in the White House, too. My bad.
Let me try again:
1. A fairer federal tax code with substantially fewer loopholes for high-income individuals and corporations?
2. No give-aways to oil companies and insurance companies.
3. About 10,000 fewer earmarks per year.
And how 'bout these:
4. More manufacturing jobs (see below). Okay, we can't blame the GOP Congress for the laws of economics. But I don't get it. They crow about the "booming" economy. I just don't hear them say: "well, when you get a GOP Congress, you lose a million manufacturing jobs every 4 years; but don't worry -- you unemployed folks can watch the DOW ticker crawl along on FoxNews while you sit at home in front of the TV eating Spam from a can . . . and that's good 'cause it'll increase advertising revenues for Fox."
5. Constitutional protection from the potential for aribitrary Executive-branch decisions to lock up an American citizen as an unlawful enemy combatant, call that American a non-citizen alien, hold him at Gitmo, deny him counsel, and -- by saying he's really an alien -- deny him the right to seek habeas, and then use abusive interrogation techniques. And there's nothing anyone can do about it.
6. Pressure on this president, using EVIDENCE accumulated during . . . what are they called, again? . . . oh yeah, OVERSIGHT HEARINGS . . . to formulate policy using information from the REALITY-BASED WORLD.
And these, too:
1. Legislation that creates incentives to develop renewable energy sources. The market place is not "working" toward this end because this administration and the GOP Congress are using the tax code to subsidize continued dependency on oil. (Why would they do that -- to keep our good friends the Saudis happy?)
And what would America get -- JOBS, JOBS, JOBS and $,$,$. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But soon. And for the rest of our lives.
2. No more tax breaks for billionaires.
3. Tax cuts for people earning less than $200,000 -- that would be 99% of the US.
AAARGH!!! Stop! These are all terrible lies.
The truth is, all we'll get from a Democrat[ ] Congress are huge deficits, weakness in our foreign policy, big government giveaway programs, and Washington dictating how our schools should work.
Yep. Vote Republican. That way we can have more debt. More rogue government's with nuclear weapons. More lost jobs here. More energy dependence. More federal control over our local schools. And less Constitution. Less income. Less personal security. (You read that right. . . because in my book, we've just blown about $400 Billion -- that could have been spent on energy research -- fighting a really stupid and unnecessary war that aliented the world and has left us impotent to deal with North Korea and Iran. Not to mention domestic spying, and Congress's "Gitmo for Americans" campaign.)
Look around. Can't you see. Can't you see. What the GOP's been doing to . . . .
Posted by shertaugh at October 24, 2006 6:10 PM
Comments
Why the obsession with manufacturing jobs? (Not you personally; rather, it's something that seems to be harped on quite a lot by protectionists.) I'm not going to sit here and claim that their loss is being offset by gains in other employment sectors (I have no idea, though I doubt it), but what makes manufacturing jobs so special? I really, truly don't understand it.
Posted by: CL at October 25, 2006 1:43 AM
Just because you say does not make it so. Obviously the above tirade has no basis in fact. It is exhausting to hear the baloney spewyed by the left. What does the left / liberal party stand for? Nobody knows? Higher taxes? Socialized Medicine? Concern about how the "rest of the world" sees us? Okie Dokey, that's for me! I will just hand over the keys and i am sure that you will take care of me. I think not.
Posted by: Ted Vanderlaan at October 25, 2006 6:49 AM
There is an incomprehensible (to me) disconnect between reality and most people's perceptions of the Republican record. The facts are pretty plain, but when people look at them they see something entirely different. Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt have been spinning in their graves for some time now.
An NPR reporter interviewing a Democratic candidate asked whether a Democratic House or Senate would immediately start hearings on the administration's shenanigans, as if that were a bad thing. I say bring it on!
Posted by: Mark at October 25, 2006 8:50 AM
Ted Vanderlaan: Not higher taxes, per se, but more progressive taxes (which is what we had under Eisenhower). One of the things truly progressive tax structures do is increase the incentive to re-invest in the company, by way of infrastructure, as well as cause pressures which prevent the huge increases in the wage gap, and the resultant problems of that, both real (in that money gets sequestered when it's too much for a person to spend) and potential (see France, ca 1798).
The "liberals" do stand for things, but the "conservatives" have been allowed to make mock of them for so long that people no longer believe them.
CL: Manufacturing jobs matter because they affect the balance of trade, if one isn't making things, then the trade deficit will increase, and that's a problem at the macro level.
And manufacturing jobs tend to have a vertical component, which makes for more jobs. When I was a machinist I made things. To do that I had to have materials, tools, blueprints, programs, machines (a sort of tool, but large enough, at $6,000 to $600,000, that it's a capital investment), and training. Then there was the question of sales, someone had to convince the customers that I/we could make the part. Someone else had to estimate the cost.
So a manufacturing job represents more than just the guy on the bench/line, it also represents the support staff.
There are other things, having to do with relative wages in skilled/unskilled/service industry jobs, and the secondary effects that has on the total economy, but things to actually sell is why manufacturing
Posted by: Terry Karney at October 25, 2006 7:17 PM
Eric -- surely you're aware that all of the trends you cite happened with a Republican Congress? If you're going to play the simplistic "correlation is causation" game, you should at least take that fact into account. (Especially as to the balanced budget: geez, those of us who remember 1995 know that there were several government shutdowns precisely because the Republicans were the ones pushing for a balanced budget while Clinton was trying to stall. The Republicans today are different, of course, but let's not pretend that the budget was balanced in the late 1990s because of Clinton, rather than because the Republican Congress forced him to come to the table on that issue.)
Posted by: Anon at October 29, 2006 6:41 PM