The Town Hall Archives

Gus · Guest

Um Yeah.. socialist is the word.. but. our health care works when it has to..Its just that people abuse the system.. Also - the major problem.. Canada looks at its people as all "good" .. but As I believe.. people are not good, they are evil.. and .. greedy / self centred.. so.. When you create socialist environments.. people will be lazy and fall to base instinct.. which is survive / make yourself most comfortable.

Oh, our politicians were good.. in fact many of them I respected .. however on one fated day in 1977 they gave up Canada's new found Identity [forged in the war at korea] and.. bended over backwards by letting aerospace be dominated by another country and... from then on we have been searching for something to Identify ourselves. and the best Canada's politicians can come up is with stupid commemration coins , and maybe a few good books here and there..
Politicians in general, not because I dont like them.. but they need a reality check.. really need to [in the words of the Beastie Boys ] CHECK THEIR HEADS..

STRYPER · Posted: Mon Jan 26, 2004 8:26 pm Post subject:

I have a question for Jared...
What do you think about Bush's economy plan and do you think it could be better?

My econ prof hates this plan so that's why I bring it up

Jared · Posted: Sun Feb 01, 2004 11:56 am Post subject:

I think Bush's economic policy is, to put it simply, awful. There are a few bright spots, but they are hardly visible among the thousand points of dark, with many apologies to Peggy Noonan.

Bush was elected as a fiscal conservative, but I sure haven't seen this in action. I hate to say this, but I shall: a President John McCain would have held the line far, far better. Arizona's senior senator is much like the man whose seat he now occupies, Barry Goldwater, in at least that regard. I was no McCain fan, but when the senator speaks of Congress spending money like a bunch of drunken sailors, I am forced to note that our president is second to none in supporting this spending.

Two words: no vetoes.

How can a president, in an almost evenly split Congress, not exercise his right to veto a bill even once in three years? Is he that weak that he can't muster up the courage to stand up to liberal policies? Is he that unconcerned about actual policy issues? Does re-election come before actually doing something right?

On some issues, I like Bush a lot. Foreign policy? Great. He evokes memories of Ronald Reagan; when he denounced the "axis of evil," I was immediately reminded of Reagan's declaration that the USSR was an "evil empire." Bush, as Reagan before him, sees the world in black and white. There are no shades of gray here. Iran isn't a somewhat evil nation. It's just evil. North Korea isn't a Madeline Albright-esque "state of concern," or even a "rogue nation." It is a tyrannical dictatorship that needs toppled. And so on. Bush sees this, and for that, I admire him.

Other issues also come to mind where one is proud to have Bush as one's president. But alas, on the one issue over which all Republicans would seemingly be united, the president simply fails. His economic policy is dreadful.

Which is not to say that it's not better than what we could have seen had we a Democratic president and a Democratic congress, nor is it to say that I don't like parts of Bush's policy, but it is to say that the policy as a whole is so muddled, so confused, that the high points are easily overlooked.

Somehow, if it is indeed possible, Bush has embraced monetarism and Keynesianism, pretending that the two are not mutually exclusive. He offers tax cuts -- wonderful! -- but doesn't follow up with spending reductions. Not so good. In fact, not only has he failed to reduce spending, he's increased it dramatically!

Now, I'm not such a die-hard fiscal (and everything else) conservative that I am impervious to reason. I know that, post-September 11th, new government spending was inevitable and indeed necessary. As much as I want to reduce government spending, the alternative here simply wasn't an option. So I'm not criticizing the boost in spending for the military and national security. That was fine.

I find fault, however, in the domestic increases. How far we have gone, alas. In the "Contract with America," only ten years ago, the National Endowment for the Arts was targeted for destruction and the Department of Education slated for elimination. The Bush solution to these issues, though, was to throw more money at them. What was he thinking?

During the Clinton years, in the one big concession of that period, Medicare was reformed rather than just getting another huge helping of funds. Did Bush expand on that reform, demand more results or even just keep everything as was? Did he reform other similar programs? No. Instead, he proposed and got an extremely costly prescription drug bill. A Democrat we all despised did better. What was he thinking?

In an embarrassingly transparent ploy to win votes in the rust belt (West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio and to some extent, Michigan), Bush imposed steel tariffs, engaging in a protectionism as I had hoped I would never see from a Republican president. And as if that were not enough, he recently proposed an immense expansion of the guest worker program to grant legal status to illegal immigrants under the ludicrous theory that we need such people to do the jobs that we Americans cannot do. I'm sorry, but with a 5.9% unemployment rate, if you start demanding that people get a job rather than stay on welfare indefinitely, I guarantee you that Americans will suddenly realize how much work they really are willing to do. What was he-- well, you get the picture.

At times, I have applauded Bush for recognizing the virtues of supply-side economics, but then he comes back, often mere moments later, as he did in his state of the union address, with the exact opposite. Reagan, he is not.

STRYPER · Posted: Mon Feb 02, 2004 2:11 am Post subject:

My econ prof says that Bush gave the recent tax cut to the wrong people and argues it this way.

Instead of giving the wealthy a tax cut (producing more money) he should have givin it to the middle class (producing more spending). He argues that the rich (such as Bill Gates) will not take his million or so in tax rebates and invest it in the market at a time of economic recession. They will wait for the market to be more secure. This assumes of course that they will pay attention to their "pocket change" at all.

Instead, he argues, give it to the middle class and lower income. With tax cuts being only a few hundred or a thousand per person it won't be as much as cutting taxes on the rich but it would produce more spending.
Robert Redford once said that he owned so many houses in the world that he has forgotten where a few of them are. He could be driving in Loundon one morning, drive past his own house and not even recognize it. You think he will spend some more money on another house!!!

In contrast give a few hundred dollars to a man struggling to buy a house and he will set up loans or invest in the stock market. Since more spending increases the economy this should have been Bush's general plan as my econ prof argues.

Do you agree? Are you still voting for Bush? Would you hope for better candidate than Bush in 2008?

Jared · Posted: Mon Feb 02, 2004 7:35 am Post subject:

I'm a strong proponent of what the critics call "trickle-down economics" and "Reaganomics." It has a proven record.

First of all, Bill Gates isn't getting as much out of this tax cut as you think, as almost all of his thirty-odd billion is invested in stocks, bonds, funds and the like. Now, if he is getting any dividends, interest or the like off of any of that, then yes, he'll pay lower taxes on such now than he would have previously, but the amount of savings that he is getting is not anywhere as large as you may think it is.

I've seen the various charts and spreadsheets and, percentage-wise, the greatest savings actually go to those who make between $25,000 and $200,000 per year. Actually, did you know that a person who makes $220,000 per year, a hefty number to be sure, but not one that makes one super rich, is in the much criticized "wealthiest one percent"? When such numbers are taken into account, the tax cuts take on new meaning, don't they? If a person with a $220,000 income gets some money back, he probably will find a way to spend it.

And even then, these wealthiest one percent -- that is, those who make more than $220,000 a year, which includes a lot of upper middle class familes -- get just eleven percent of the tax cut. You can complain about one percent receiving eleven percent of the cut, but then again, they also pay about 40% of the total taxes in this country...

These tax cuts were greatly targeted at the kind of people who own small businesses, really, because such people, with a bit of extra cash, can hire new people, are apt to spend more on lower-end luxury items and do other things that stimulate economic growth.

In fact, all wage-earners got a significant amount of cash back. That it is proportional to their income only makes sense, considering the fact that they pay more taxes in the first place.

And the cuts did help the economy out, as one can see from the way things have picked up of late. Other factors? Sure. But the tax cuts were a major part of it.

Jared · Posted: Mon Feb 02, 2004 10:26 am Post subject:

STRYPER · Posted: Mon Feb 02, 2004 12:25 pm Post subject:

Jared · Posted: Mon Feb 02, 2004 3:50 pm Post subject:

Gus · Guest

How do you define a Nation ? What is a Nation ? How is a Nation formed ?

Guest · Posted: Wed Mar 03, 2004 3:31 pm Post subject:

What do you think about the idea of "truth and reconciliation" concerning the apartheid in South Africa?