• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

I Wish Al Gore's Win Had Stayed Out Of The Right Wing Supreme Court

Campbell

Banned
Joined
Jan 8, 2013
Messages
2,138
Reaction score
473
Location
East Tennessee
Gender
Male
Political Leaning
Liberal
I've heard all the standard malarkey about Clinton borrowing from social security, about him not having a surplus and all the other convenient bold faced lies told by jealous Republicans. If Bush had let the surpluses continue to buy back debt the way Clinton had been doing during his last three fiscal years the debt was scheduled to be completely paid down and clear by 2012. What was the first thing Bush did? Two tax cuts, 2001 and 2003 using reconciliation to block opposition from the Democrats and Voila!! Surpluses gone. Then the crazy guy started two unfunded wars and because he didn't want to admit the tax cuts were a huge mistake he never raised the rates back and proceeded to double Reagan and his daddy's debt from $5.7 trillion to nearly $12 trillion. It's tax cuts for the wealthy which made a disaster of our national debt.

Since Al Gore was wrapped up in the Clinton surpluses you can bet your bippy he would have not cut tax rates for the wealthy. He wouldn't have invaded Iraq either.
 
I've heard all the standard malarkey about Clinton borrowing from social security, about him not having a surplus and all the other convenient bold faced lies told by jealous Republicans. If Bush had let the surpluses continue to buy back debt the way Clinton had been doing during his last three fiscal years the debt was scheduled to be completely paid down and clear by 2012. What was the first thing Bush did? Two tax cuts, 2001 and 2003 using reconciliation to block opposition from the Democrats and Voila!! Surpluses gone. Then the crazy guy started two unfunded wars and because he didn't want to admit the tax cuts were a huge mistake he never raised the rates back and proceeded to double Reagan and his daddy's debt from $5.7 trillion to nearly $12 trillion. It's tax cuts for the wealthy which made a disaster of our national debt.

Since Al Gore was wrapped up in the Clinton surpluses you can bet your bippy he would have not cut tax rates for the wealthy. He wouldn't have invaded Iraq either.

There is no social security trust fund, no lock box. All tax revenue goes into the general fund and then congress, starting in the house, spends it as they see fit. They do account for social security deposits and when they spend them, they issue bonds which if you talk to a congressman, are backed by the "good faith and credit of the United States." I don't know how long they've been doing that. I know that both Republican and Democrat administrations do it and it's part of our debt which is seventeen trillion or several hundred trillion depending on who you talk to.

There is no need to defend Clinton. That's just how business in Washington is done. They know if they default there is always quantative easing and nobody is going to hook up a wrecker onto the bumper of the car in the driveway. The Clinton surplus by the way was mostly an accounting trick. It's like the way they hide inflation from us. They continually change the way they measure it to make things look better than they are.
 
I supported Gore, but it is probably best he lost.
 
The Clinton surpluses were due to an economic boom that emanated from Silicon Valley. Many, many people got suddenly well-off/rich because the stock market (particularly telecom) went nuts. Because tax rates were higher, revenues were higher. While the prosperity was real for many, for others it was just false paper wealth which evaporated after the market crashed.

For several years following Clinton, we had another false economy which was the housing boom. When that deflated, as all bubbles do, people who had paid lots of taxes suddenly found themselves with lots of losses so revenues dropped while spending kept increasing. Bush was a very detached President and didn't seem to comprehend that things had changed.

I too felt that Gore would have been a good President. It was if he had studied the job all his life and when he was lost to the SCOTUS decision, I respected him for backing off and not running again. We actually had a choice between an intelligent (but dull) man and a dumb (but cowboy-like) man and we chose the latter.

Had Clinton not behaved so badly near the end of his term, I think Gore would have won easily. But while Clinton was a brilliant man, and IMHO a fairly good President, his sleaziness caused lasting harm to America even though it was fairly petty stuff.

It's hard to figure what might have been different if it had gone the other way. Would we still have had 9/11 and how might we have dealt with it? Would we have had the housing bubble? Would we have attacked Iraq? We'll never know (unless you believe in parallel universes.
 
If only the voters in his own home state respected him enough to vote for him, huh? What a bitch.
 
There is no social security trust fund, no lock box. All tax revenue goes into the general fund and then congress, starting in the house, spends it as they see fit. They do account for social security deposits and when they spend them, they issue bonds which if you talk to a congressman, are backed by the "good faith and credit of the United States." I don't know how long they've been doing that. I know that both Republican and Democrat administrations do it and it's part of our debt which is seventeen trillion or several hundred trillion depending on who you talk to.

There is no need to defend Clinton. That's just how business in Washington is done. They know if they default there is always quantative easing and nobody is going to hook up a wrecker onto the bumper of the car in the driveway. The Clinton surplus by the way was mostly an accounting trick. It's like the way they hide inflation from us. They continually change the way they measure it to make things look better than they are.

OK


HRES 490 IH
106th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. RES. 490
To ensure that the fiscal year 2000 on-budget surplus is used to reduce publicly-held debt and provide tax relief to American taxpayers.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
May 4, 2000
Mr. WELDON of Florida (for himself, Mr. ARMEY, Mr. DELAY, Mr. LARGENT, Mr. COBURN, and Mr. STEARNS) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Ways and Means

RESOLUTION
To ensure that the fiscal year 2000 on-budget surplus is used to reduce publicly-held debt and provide tax relief to American taxpayers.
Resolved,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the `Save Our Surplus for Debt Reduction and Tax Rebate Resolution of 2000'.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS AND PURPOSE.
(a) FINDINGS- Congress finds that--
(1) the Office of Management and Budget estimated in the President's fiscal year 2001 budget submission that the Government will have a $19,000,000,000 nonsocial security surplus (on-budget surplus) in fiscal year 2000;
(2) it is expected that in the summer of 2000, the Office of Management and Budget will estimate an even larger budget surplus for fiscal year 2000;
(3) Government spending in fiscal year 2000 will increase faster than the rate of inflation for a total of over $1,750,000,000,000;
(4) the public debt has been paid down by $51,000,000,000 in fiscal year 1998, $88,000,000,000 in fiscal year 1999, and current estimates are that $163,000,000,000 will be paid down in fiscal year 2000;
 
OK


HRES 490 IH
106th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. RES. 490
To ensure that the fiscal year 2000 on-budget surplus is used to reduce publicly-held debt and provide tax relief to American taxpayers.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
May 4, 2000
Mr. WELDON of Florida (for himself, Mr. ARMEY, Mr. DELAY, Mr. LARGENT, Mr. COBURN, and Mr. STEARNS) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Ways and Means

RESOLUTION
To ensure that the fiscal year 2000 on-budget surplus is used to reduce publicly-held debt and provide tax relief to American taxpayers.
Resolved,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the `Save Our Surplus for Debt Reduction and Tax Rebate Resolution of 2000'.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS AND PURPOSE.
(a) FINDINGS- Congress finds that--
(1) the Office of Management and Budget estimated in the President's fiscal year 2001 budget submission that the Government will have a $19,000,000,000 nonsocial security surplus (on-budget surplus) in fiscal year 2000;
(2) it is expected that in the summer of 2000, the Office of Management and Budget will estimate an even larger budget surplus for fiscal year 2000;
(3) Government spending in fiscal year 2000 will increase faster than the rate of inflation for a total of over $1,750,000,000,000;
(4) the public debt has been paid down by $51,000,000,000 in fiscal year 1998, $88,000,000,000 in fiscal year 1999, and current estimates are that $163,000,000,000 will be paid down in fiscal year 2000;

I'm not going to pretend that I understand this enough to explain it to you. The Myth of the Clinton Surplus, Part II |
 
I'm not going to pretend that I understand this enough to explain it to you. The Myth of the Clinton Surplus, Part II |

Are you nuts? I just showed you the official verbiage from the house of representatives bill which declares how much surplus which was used to buy back debt for three fiscal years. Are you dumb??

HRES 490 IH
106th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. RES. 490
To ensure that the fiscal year 2000 on-budget surplus is used to reduce publicly-held debt and provide tax relief to American taxpayers.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
May 4, 2000
Mr. WELDON of Florida (for himself, Mr. ARMEY, Mr. DELAY, Mr. LARGENT, Mr. COBURN, and Mr. STEARNS) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Ways and Means

RESOLUTION
To ensure that the fiscal year 2000 on-budget surplus is used to reduce publicly-held debt and provide tax relief to American taxpayers.
Resolved,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the `Save Our Surplus for Debt Reduction and Tax Rebate Resolution of 2000'.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS AND PURPOSE.
(a) FINDINGS- Congress finds that--
(1) the Office of Management and Budget estimated in the President's fiscal year 2001 budget submission that the Government will have a $19,000,000,000 nonsocial security surplus (on-budget surplus) in fiscal year 2000;
(2) it is expected that in the summer of 2000, the Office of Management and Budget will estimate an even larger budget surplus for fiscal year 2000;
(3) Government spending in fiscal year 2000 will increase faster than the rate of inflation for a total of over $1,750,000,000,000;
(4) the public debt has been paid down by $51,000,000,000 in fiscal year 1998, $88,000,000,000 in fiscal year 1999, and current estimates are that $163,000,000,000 will be paid down in fiscal year 2000;
 
I've heard all the standard malarkey about Clinton borrowing from social security, about him not having a surplus and all the other convenient bold faced lies told by jealous Republicans. If Bush had let the surpluses continue to buy back debt the way Clinton had been doing during his last three fiscal years the debt was scheduled to be completely paid down and clear by 2012. What was the first thing Bush did? Two tax cuts, 2001 and 2003 using reconciliation to block opposition from the Democrats and Voila!! Surpluses gone. Then the crazy guy started two unfunded wars and because he didn't want to admit the tax cuts were a huge mistake he never raised the rates back and proceeded to double Reagan and his daddy's debt from $5.7 trillion to nearly $12 trillion. It's tax cuts for the wealthy which made a disaster of our national debt.

Since Al Gore was wrapped up in the Clinton surpluses you can bet your bippy he would have not cut tax rates for the wealthy. He wouldn't have invaded Iraq either.

Yep. Elections have consequences, and I do believe Bush's election hurt this nation terribly for a few decades.

Damage in economic terms was bad, but the kicker was the hyper reaction to 9/11, including Iraq, patriot act, DHS, etc. he did exactly what Bin Laden was banking on.
 
Are you nuts? I just showed you the official verbiage from the house of representatives bill which declares how much surplus which was used to buy back debt for three fiscal years. Are you dumb??

HRES 490 IH
106th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. RES. 490
To ensure that the fiscal year 2000 on-budget surplus is used to reduce publicly-held debt and provide tax relief to American taxpayers.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
May 4, 2000
Mr. WELDON of Florida (for himself, Mr. ARMEY, Mr. DELAY, Mr. LARGENT, Mr. COBURN, and Mr. STEARNS) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Ways and Means

RESOLUTION
To ensure that the fiscal year 2000 on-budget surplus is used to reduce publicly-held debt and provide tax relief to American taxpayers.
Resolved,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the `Save Our Surplus for Debt Reduction and Tax Rebate Resolution of 2000'.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS AND PURPOSE.
(a) FINDINGS- Congress finds that--
(1) the Office of Management and Budget estimated in the President's fiscal year 2001 budget submission that the Government will have a $19,000,000,000 nonsocial security surplus (on-budget surplus) in fiscal year 2000;
(2) it is expected that in the summer of 2000, the Office of Management and Budget will estimate an even larger budget surplus for fiscal year 2000;
(3) Government spending in fiscal year 2000 will increase faster than the rate of inflation for a total of over $1,750,000,000,000;
(4) the public debt has been paid down by $51,000,000,000 in fiscal year 1998, $88,000,000,000 in fiscal year 1999, and current estimates are that $163,000,000,000 will be paid down in fiscal year 2000;

I am neither nuts or dumb, thanks for asking. I'm smart enough to know that anyone who believes they can describe the national debt, federal spending and our budget in a couple paragraphs on the internet lacks certain critical thinking skills. This subject is way too complex for either of us to fully understand. I thought the intelligent coarse of action was to point to an article which would create a thought process that would end in a little deeper understanding of how our budget process works. On the other hand I could have taken your approach and been insulting.

I had a man with a doctorate in economics explain the way government calculates inflation to me once. This is off topic but I have a point so bare with me. So that I could understand it, he said that government choses a group of commodities and they put them in a basket and assign a price to them. Occasionally they re-price the basket and if the price goes up it's inflation, if the price goes down it's deflation. The problem with this system is that if the government wants to show a different result, all they do is change what's in the basket. I may be mistaken but I think this was done recently with fuel of some sort.

My point is that governments manipulate the numbers in the economy to serve their needs. If you bothered to read the link I posted you would have seen that every president since Carter has manipulated budget numbers in their presentation to the public to show this or that is working or to paint a better picture of the economy than the one that it's earned.

I encourage you to continue to be naive if it makes you happy. You might even find people who believe you.
 
I had a man with a doctorate in economics explain the way government calculates inflation to me once.

LOL!

So did I. It was called "Economics 101". That man with the doctorate of economics also taught a lot more than that, including the fact that non-totalitarian governments do not deliberately manipulate economic numbers to show what they want to show, because the truth is always eventually revealed.
 
Yep. Elections have consequences, and I do believe Bush's election hurt this nation terribly for a few decades.

Damage in economic terms was bad, but the kicker was the hyper reaction to 9/11, including Iraq, patriot act, DHS, etc. he did exactly what Bin Laden was banking on.

Yes he did......from the get-go Osama Bin Laden said his goal was to bankrupt America.
 
LOL!

So did I. It was called "Economics 101". That man with the doctorate of economics also taught a lot more than that, including the fact that non-totalitarian governments do not deliberately manipulate economic numbers to show what they want to show, because the truth is always eventually revealed.

Funny, I took economics in college a long time ago and this was a recent conversation but good catch. An example of what I was talking about is food and fuel. The indices that they use to track inflation use to contain both commodities. They were eventually considered to be too volatile so they were removed from the statistics used to calculate inflation. That's one reason that inflation isn't in the headlines even though fuel prices have exploded. One reason that government wants to control inflation and not have volatility in the inflation numbers is that they make numerous payments with a COLA increase. If the cost of living doesn't increase because food and fuel are not included in the inflation calculation the government saves money even though the cost of living increases and inflation doesn't.
 
Funny, I took economics in college a long time ago and this was a recent conversation but good catch. An example of what I was talking about is food and fuel. The indices that they use to track inflation use to contain both commodities. They were eventually considered to be too volatile so they were removed from the statistics used to calculate inflation. That's one reason that inflation isn't in the headlines even though fuel prices have exploded. One reason that government wants to control inflation and not have volatility in the inflation numbers is that they make numerous payments with a COLA increase. If the cost of living doesn't increase because food and fuel are not included in the inflation calculation the government saves money even though the cost of living increases and inflation doesn't.

Food and fuel are removed from the "core" inflation statistic because they are much more volatile than other prices. This has the effect of smoothing out the inflation curves - not lowering them, because if the core price of food and fuel remains high, it generally affects all the other prices eventually. See, fuel prices often can go down.. precipitously in the case of gasoline or natural gas prices, for example. And you dont want to tie peoples COLA to those often temporary drops. Ideally, you want a number that is a slower moving indicator of the real inflation rate. Thats the concept of core inflation.

Fuel prices havent 'exploded' much. Look at gas prices:

ch.jpg

Massive drop in 08 because of the crisis, gradual recovery to about a dollar more than today. I calculate about a 3.5% increase annually. That should be reflected, long term, into the price of everything we buy, since those things are dependent upon transport.

Now how about natural gas?
commodity-natural-gas.jpg

Ouch. It went from 6 to 3.5 in the span of ten years, with spikes up to 14. Thats a negative annual inflation rate of -5% per year.

So including these commodities with wild price swings would whipsaw the official inflation rate terribly, and make it much less useful. They also fluctuate seasonally - food and gas especially, and thats not good when you are trying to figure out monthly inflation rates.

There are lots of other inflation measures - the non core CPIs for example, that will give you different inflation numbers.
 
Thanks, you've explained it better than I. I would say that a price in gas from a buck sixty one to three sixty is somewhat of an explosion though.
 
that election had the lousiest choices of any that i can remember. it was a pity that both of them couldn't lose. Gore would have been better than Bush as president, but the same could be said of a mannequin. when he made out with Tipper onstage, i just had to cringe. somebody should have put a parental warning label on that.
 
Gore lost. Get over it.

Yeah...after Jeb Bush, his concubine Katherine Harris and the conservative supreme court took it away from him. Al Gore got half a million more popular votes than Bush. As a matter of fact Republicans have lost the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections. Kerry is the only one who actually lost and that was a case of a bunch of losers lying like a dog about Kerry's service in Vietnam. Bush doesn't even know how to spell Vietnam much less ever go over there while the war was hot.

Bush 286
Kerry 251

Obama 332
Romulus 206
 
Yeah...after Jeb Bush, his concubine Katherine Harris and the conservative supreme court took it away from him. Al Gore got half a million more popular votes than Bush. As a matter of fact Republicans have lost the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections. Kerry is the only one who actually lost and that was a case of a bunch of losers lying like a dog about Kerry's service in Vietnam. Bush doesn't even know how to spell Vietnam much less ever go over there while the war was hot.

Bush 286
Kerry 251

Obama 332
Romulus 206
Jeb Bush had a sexual relationship with Harris? News to me. The popular vote doesn't count. The electoral vote does. Gore lost the electoral vote count, and lost the election. Remaining bitter over it won't change the outcome at all. Gore lost. Your characterization doesn't change the outcome at all.
 
Jeb Bush had a sexual relationship with Harris? News to me. The popular vote doesn't count. The electoral vote does. Gore lost the electoral vote count, and lost the election. Remaining bitter over it won't change the outcome at all. Gore lost. Your characterization doesn't change the outcome at all.

He lost the electoral vote because of one state.....his brother's. A close friend of mine was a technician who was working on those ? faulty voting machines and he told me every vote he saw thrown out because of the punches not being clean was a Democrat vote. The irony of this is that back when he was a tech for IBM we used to argue politics. He was a Republican...at least leaned that way. When Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris got that thing jacked up and they put the recount on hold.....LOL, it became a family matter. When the supreme court became involved the decision was 5-4. Guess which party the 5 were associated with? BINGO!!
 
He lost the electoral vote because of one state.....his brother's. A close friend of mine was a technician who was working on those ? faulty voting machines and he told me every vote he saw thrown out because of the punches not being clean was a Democrat vote. The irony of this is that back when he was a tech for IBM we used to argue politics. He was a Republican...at least leaned that way. When Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris got that thing jacked up and they put the recount on hold.....LOL, it became a family matter. When the supreme court became involved the decision was 5-4. Guess which party the 5 were associated with? BINGO!!

Your close friend wasn't a partisan? Don't forget the university team that recounted all the votes only to discover that Bush's win in Florida was even larger. That's the fact, unpleasant as it might be for you.
 
Shouldn't this thread be in the "Conspiracy Theories" section?
 
Your close friend wasn't a partisan? Don't forget the university team that recounted all the votes only to discover that Bush's win in Florida was even larger. That's the fact, unpleasant as it might be for you.

What's unpleasant for me is that when the marks on a voting card showed absolute intention to vote Democrat but because one of the punches didn't completely penetrate the card the vote was disqualified. Like I said...he was a technician called in to work on the machines and got a look at numerous cards to identify the problem. You modern facebook nerds don't have a clue about how things worked back then...nearly thirteen years ago.

Hell Fire....Cheating is the only way the Republican party is ever going to win another presidential election. When the nation's first black president can defeat the best you have to offer by a landslide in the middle of the worst recession in 70 years you need to pay attention.

Romney won two demographics.....white men and voters over 65. Since whites will soon be a minority in America and folks over 65 are dying 100 times faster than youngsters under thirty.........."Houston.....We Have A Problem!"
 
Last edited:
He lost the electoral vote because of one state.....his brother's. A close friend of mine was a technician who was working on those ? faulty voting machines and he told me every vote he saw thrown out because of the punches not being clean was a Democrat vote. The irony of this is that back when he was a tech for IBM we used to argue politics. He was a Republican...at least leaned that way. When Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris got that thing jacked up and they put the recount on hold.....LOL, it became a family matter. When the supreme court became involved the decision was 5-4. Guess which party the 5 were associated with? BINGO!!
Okay. Gore still lost.
 
Yeah...after Jeb Bush, his concubine Katherine Harris and the conservative supreme court took it away from him. Al Gore got half a million more popular votes than Bush. As a matter of fact Republicans have lost the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections. Kerry is the only one who actually lost and that was a case of a bunch of losers lying like a dog about Kerry's service in Vietnam. Bush doesn't even know how to spell Vietnam much less ever go over there while the war was hot.

Bush 286
Kerry 251

Obama 332
Romulus 206

ROTFLOL... is this your deflection of Obama's incompetence? The worst president since Jimmy Carter, which makes him the worst in modern times.

The press recounted the votes in Florida after the election. Bush won. Any which way you cut it... Bush won the election per the rules. It was the Florida Supreme Court that kept making law from the bench. Not their job, and the SCOTUS gave them a public bitch slapping.

As for your OP... there was no surplus, and any fiscal discipline was forced by The Contract with America. Clinton was a slimeball but pragmatic, something Obama lacks... but... when the press propagandizes... there is little need.

As an aside... Clinton said he'd never pass welfare reform... he did... and on its 10th anniversary, claimed it was his success.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom