View Single Post
Old 10-02-2004, 06:34 PM   #17 (permalink)
guy44
Somnabulist
 
guy44's Avatar
 
Location: corner of No and Where
Chauncey, I appreciate your input, but allow me to answer some of your points.

Quote:
By th etime 2008 comes around we will be starting to realy benefit from his policies.

Most of the hardships we have been feeling lately have been the trees of the Cinton administration.

It really surprises me that people forget that many of the decisions that Presidents make take time to actually be felt.

[snip]

I think that by the time 2008 comes around Bush will have the economy stronger.

[snip]


Political game plans can take years and years to be executed.
If you have a plan that starts getting kinks in the middle do you give up on the plan and lose everything? no you adjust to the situation stay on course and keep your eyes on the goal.

I think in 2008 we will be fine.
If I understand you correctly, you believe that the economic policies of a president can only be examined in the years immediately following his first four years. There is some truth to that, of course; you can't realistically measure all of the impacts of an economic policy immediately after it is passed. Nonetheless, you claim both that Bush's economic policies will prove themselves by his 8th year in office. You ALSO claim that any economic problems the country faces are caused by Clinton's economic policies. Yet by Clinton's 8th year, this country prospered by like never before in its history. So what is it: do economic policies prove themselves within 8 years, or can they have longer-range consequences, as you claim Clinton's did? I'm not going to argue the point too much, but frankly, your argument for Bush's economic policies so far is,

1. Things suck now, but you can't hold him accountable for it yet, the logic of which means that no president could ever be held accountable for his first four years of economic policy, and

2. Businesses need money to give us jobs. But his tax cuts actually went to rich individuals, who have little reason to spend that on creating jobs. And by the way, the average job created during Bush's time has paid $9,000 less than the jobs that were lost. Bush is the first Prez since Hoover to LOSE jobs. Also, businesses that were given money have largely outsourced or gone overseas, as Bush has done nothing to stop them. There are other arguments, but it is tough to list them all here...

You also say that "kinks" in policy execution mean that you just keep on going and ignore them. Well, excuse me, but since when? Are we to IGNORE any problems in policy from the President, and just keep going forward without rethinking or reexamining the policies themselves? Were you saying that when Clinton ran policies you disagreed with, just ignore problems and keep on going? That Clinton shouldn't be held accountable at the time because you can't possibly understand the true consequences of his policies until later? Bush's economy has lost jobs, wages are lower, social security is in trouble, Homeland Security, according our own commissions (9/11) is woefully underfunded, Afghanistan is a an uncompromised mess, Iraq is a quagmire in which the U.S. is universally despised and the country is churning out new terrorists, etc. etc. Need I go on? Should we IGNORE these problems?


Quote:
He has not backed down on his foreign policy decisions and I admire him for it.
Too bad they were, just about every single one, the wrong decisions. Why is not changing course after making a mistake admirable?

Your arguments, except for the tax cut statement, have no specifics. They boil down to, well, the economy may be in the toilet and our foreign policy doesn't work, but I admire the Prez for not changing his failed policies.

Man.
__________________
"You have reached Ritual Sacrifice. For goats press one, or say 'goats.'"
guy44 is offline  
 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360