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If Republicans do get back into power, what are they going to do?

But that's not the question I asked, Conservative.

Essentially, I'm asked which is the correct economic stimulator based on Republican rhetoric because they've said BOTH what drive the economy. So, which is it? Tax cuts to the wealthy or incentives, i.e., tax cuts, tax credits or loans, to small businesses?
 

Both are the right prescription. Tax cuts to taxpayers will stimulate economic growth and job creation like it always has and an easier tax policy on businesses will encourage expansion and growth which also means new jobs. Way too much time is spent on demonizing individual wealth and ignoring how politicians spend the tax revenue they collect. We have a 3.8 trillion dollar govt today, about 2 trillion dollars more than needed or our Founders created.

Too many people today are adopting that entitlement mentality and there doesn't seem to be any consequences for poor choices individuals make. Too many bailouts, duplication of efforts by the State and Federal Government, and massive growth in our central govt. has created too much dependence, too much waste, and too much fraud at all levels thus the need for more money instead of being accountable for how that money is spent.
 
That's pure BS, if you don't know that you should. Tax cuts NEVER pay for themselves. NEVER!!!
 
We get what we deserve. If we are stupid enough to borrow from our grandchildren to pay for non-essentials today, we deserve to have our grandchildren take away our social security and/or medical care or some other entitlement.
Tax and spend does not bother me, as long as we spend only the tax revenue. THAT is how it is supposed to work. We pay for services rendered, and a lot of services are rendered by all our levels of government.
Borrow and spend does bother me, a lot, especially when we are spending it stupidly. We didn't need to invade Iraq, and we aren't fighting the war on terror as we should. If we are going to kick butt, go in and kick butt, then leave and let them do the clean up and "rebuilding" of their government and economy.

And I especially find it distasteful to buy friends thru "foreign aid" programs.
I don't care if we have their respect. Forget who said it, but goes like this. Given a choice of fear or respect, we should prefer that our enemies fear us...
The GOP handed Obama a mess, and then we complain that he isn't cleaning it up fast enough.
I don't vote for DEMS on the federal level, but if the GOP can't come up with a candidate who has a backbone and will stand up to the "power behind the throne", I probably just won't vote at all.
 
pbrauer said:
That's pure BS, if you don't know that you should. Tax cuts NEVER pay for themselves. NEVER!!!
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Tax cuts arent an expense, show the tax cut expense item in the budget. You have been brainwashed and liberals love having people like you dependent on their programs.
 

As I recall the Democrats had control of the Congress in 2007 and even had control of the House before that so I am sick and tired of having this blamed on the Republicans. Too many civics challenged people here and buying of the liberal spin. What did the Democrats do after taking total control of Congress in 2007 to prevent the mess we have today?
 


You expect the DEMS to clean up the GOP mess in only a few years?
Would you have us believe that only the DEMS are responsible for deficit spending and increased debt?
The liberals I know personally don't complain about paying taxes, that is a Republican complaint.
How can a person call himself a conservative when he is in debt?
How can a party call itself conservative when it contributes to the debt problem instead of looking for a solution?
 
The GOP will increase the gap between the upper 2% and the rest of us as they always do. Other than that, they will be bumbling just as the Democrats have been. The time of statesmen and women are long gone, now we have fools dressed as and posing as brillant minds!
 

I don't get it, what mess, stock market was at 14000, 52 straight months of economic growth and job creation. Where do you get your information? I am convinced that you and others here are totally economically challenged. BEA.gov gives the answers but you and others refuse to go get the data preferring instead to be made fools of by the media.
 

Have you ever heard of personal responsibility? How does a political party affect how much money you make?
 

That's a false statement. Close, but not true. 2 of the months under W. Bush there were net jobs lost, back-to-back in the summer of 2007. Under Bush, the US had the lowest net job creation of any president since Hoover! Less than 1 million compared to Clinton's 22.7 million and the worst years under Bush were before Democrats gained control of Congress. And I don't see how you could blame Obama for jobs being lost his first few months in office, that seems ridiculous to me. What policies of Obama's are you blaming?

If there was no GOP mess, why did Bush go forward with the first round of federal bailouts? What about the mortgage crisis? What about Federal spending? It seems like you're not very familiar with the data.
 
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The net job loss was at the beginning of the recession which interesting enough occurred AFTER the Democrats took Congress. Bush took office in a recession and left in a recession. There are always job losses during a recession. The dotcom bubble burst in 2000 leading the the recession Bush had when he took office, then there was that little thing called 9/11 that many don't seem to remember. It seems to me that liberals were so interested in gaining the WH that they didn't do their jobs preventing the financial crisis like Bush wanted in regulating Fannie and Freddie.

What so many don't seem to understand that it is Congress that makes the laws and spends the money, not the President. Civics doesn't seem to be a strong suit for many here. By the way I wasn't for the bailout but Obama was and Obama has put Bush spending on steroids. Still cannot get anyone here that continues to bash Bush to give me the actual Bush deficits vs. what Obama is generating with a Democrat Congress. Name for me any President in U.S. history that had trillion dollar deficits any time during their Administration.
 

There are lies, damned lies, and then there are statistics....Mark Twain

I worked in a statistics group for a year once, they make up a lot of the numbers as they go, and admit it. The goal is to get a conclusion that suits your goals. Right now the GOP has a site where they solicit questions and ideas from the public. Of course, they ignore all the input that doesn't suit their goals, but it sure seems like they want public input, right? The current situation belongs to both parties, but too many extreme right wing idiots are too arrogant to accept the blame for their part. The greedy and selfish among us don't want to pay their own way. They want their grandchildren to pay....
 

Probably a lot like your bank account, statistics, right? Income and expenses are made up, right? Unbelieveable how you and others ignore the checkbook of the United States, the U.S Treasury Dept that shows income tax revenue growing AFTER the Reagan and Bush tax cuts. Amazing how that checkbook lies, probably just like yours.

No matter how you spin it, the numbers at the U.S. Treasury Site and the Bureau of Economic Analysis paint a different picture of the Bush Administration than you and others. Amazing how those numbers were good enough during the Clinton Administration but during the Bush years they were all lies. What exactly changed in the way they report numbers?
 

MY bank account is plenty healthy, even after paying a LOT of taxes the last few years.
It takes money to run a government and we are the source of that money. That is a fact of life. Tax breaks create temporary gains, and permanent debt. If we don't learn to pay as we go, spending only the funds available, etc. then we will end up losing our place in world economics. I am pretty sure that both parties are the same, short term thinking and long term blindness determines their actions.
All I can do is what I am doing, helping my kids and grandkids get a good education so they have a better chance at employment. I keep telling them that nearly all politicians are liars, and only the truly gullible will listen to them. Problem is, most of the voting public is just that, gullible....
The far lefties, and far righties, are the lead liars, and the rest of the herd just believes the lies.
 

You miss the point entirely, the numbers I posted from the Treasury Dept ARE the bank account numbers for the U.S. How are those numbers manipulated?

Then you tell me that tax cuts are an expense. Where is that expense item in the Treasury Data, Let me help you, notice income tax revenue going up AFTER the Bush tax cuts of 2003. This is really frustrating as you seem somewhat intelligent. How can tax revenue grow after tax cuts and that increase in tax revenue increase the deficit? What causes permanent debt is spending, not tax cuts that grow revenue.

We have 16 million unemployed Americans today. How do you propose getting them employed, raising taxes? Do you have more money to spend on your kids when your taxes go up?

It does take money to run the govt, but we don't need a 3.8 trillion dollar govt. today and that is the Obama budget.

All this concern for govt. revenue and claiming that personal income from individuals paid to the govt. is an expense. Amazing lack of logic and common sense here.

Receipt 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002

Individual Income tax 915.3 1,145.7 1163.5 1,043.9 927.2 808.9 793.7 858.3
Corporate Taxes 138.2 304.3 370.2 353.9 278.3 189.4 131.8 148.0

Total 1053.5 1,450.0 1533.7 1,397.8 1205.5 998.3 925.5 1006.3

Current Report: Combined Statement of Receipts, Outlays, and Balances of the United States Government (Combined Statement): Publications & Guidance: Financial Management Service

U.S. Department of Commerce. Bureau of Economic Analysis
 

If a Republican had this budget, you would be all for it.
 
Vader said:
If a Republican had this budget, you would be all for it.
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Do you know what those numbers represent? It was the Republican Budgets and it was the revenue collected in the form of taxes AFTER the Bush Tax cuts. Please explain to me how tax revenue went up AFTER the Bush tax cuts? The same thing happened AFTER the Reagan tax cuts. Democrats keep telling me that tax cuts caused the deficits yet as proven tax cuts increase revenue so how can anything that increases revenue to the govt. create deficits?
 

Much of what you're saying is mostly true but still misleading. For instance, the recession you're talking about began in March, 2001 -- months after Bush took office and with a Republican house and a split Senate. Between 2001 and 2006, what was the House doing to prevent the mortgage crisis? What was the White House doing to prevent it? You're telling me that 6 years of a split Senate and a Republican House can't be held responsible, but 2 years of a Democratic congress under a Republican president are solely responsible for our problems today? And then you blame Obama, a completely hypocritical statement after you've just been ranting about how the executive branch has nothing to do with our current economic state.

It's not wise to tell your opposition that they don't know the facts when you're not getting them right yourself. That whole 52 months of job gains crap is straight out of the RNC talking points playbook. Nobody spewing that garbage knows the data because they're rehashing information that came straight from the spin doctors. And the worst part of it is that after I just told you that it's not true that we had 52 straight months of net jobs created, you'll still go around telling people that it's true. Because you don't listen
 

Many economists disagree with that statement that the recession began in March 2001 however it really is irrelevant. We just came off a contested election and Bush took office on January 21, 2001 so hardly had any economic plan in place to cause a recession. That is hardly the case with Obama who was in the Congress that helped create the recession he claims he inherited. Now unless Bush implemented a National economic plan from the state house in Austin your point is inaccurate.

Now if you would do some research you would find that Bush in 2005 tried to get Fannie and Freddie regulated but who stood in the way, Franks in the House and Dodd in the Senate. You do realize it takes 60 votes to get anything through the Senate right?

Where did I say the executive branch has nothing to do with the current economy? It certainly does but it isn't alone and that is why Obama cannot blame Bush. Obama was in the Congress and contributed to the recession and most non partisans agree with that.



No, the statement about job gains come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and not the RNC. I suggest you go to that site and do some research. Since it is the keeper of employment data and no one seemed to have a problem with it during the Clinton years, I wonder why that seems to be wrong data now? BLS.gov

Here are the employment data, The Bush tax rate cut went into affect in July 2003. Now I may be off a month or two but you can count the months when employment went up during the Bush years. You might want to get off your partisan claims and actually verify what Obama is telling you.


Year Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

2001 137778 137612 137783 137299 137092 136873 137071 136241 136846 136392 136238 136047
2002 135701 136438 136177 136126 136539 136415 136413 136705 137302 137008 136521 136426
2003 137417 137482 137434 137633 137544 137790 137474 137549 137609 137984 138424 138411
2004 138472 138542 138453 138680 138852 139174 139556 139573 139487 139732 140231 140125
2005 140245 140385 140654 141254 141609 141714 142026 142434 142401 142548 142499 142752
2006 143142 143444 143765 143794 144108 144370 144229 144631 144797 145292 145477 145914
2007 146032 146043 146368 145686 145952 146079 145926 145685 146193 145885 146483 146173
2008 146421 146165 146173 146306 146023 145768 145515 145187 145021 144677 143907 143188
2009 142221 141687 140854 140902 140438 140038 139817 139433 138768 138242 138381 137792
2010 138333 138641 138905 139455 139420 139119 138960
 
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I already told you that it was 50 out of 52 months, those two coming in 2007:
2007 146032 146043 146368 145686 145952 146079 145926 145685 146193 145885 146483 146173

They're right there. Your claim of 52 straight months is false, I already said it and you could have just said "you're right, I was wrong but my point is still generally true" but instead you're trying to say that you're still right and I'm still wrong. And every president since Hoover had jobs created under their administration. Carter's administration saw more jobs in one term than Bush in his two terms! I don't know what you're trying to say anymore.
 

Look you can spin it any way you want but the fact is employment grew as did govt. revenue AFTER the Bush tax cuts so what is your point, 50 months of job growth instead of 52? Wow, imagine that, missed it by two months and said I could be off a month or two, must be that conservative education I received which was short on math skills. What you don't want to accept is you aren't talking to someone who buys talking points from either party and I learned a long time ago to trust but verify. No one is going to give me liberal or conservative talking points as I have the facts through research of non partisan sites.

I have a lot of problems with what Bush did and didn't agree with him on every issue but I know that he didn't cause the recession that some economists claim started in March 2001 as that is impossible.

Then those claim that his tax cuts caused the deficits is also a lie because the U.S. Treasury which is the checkbook of the United States shows income tax revenue increasing AFTER the tax rate cuts went into effect. How can any tax cut that grows revenue cause deficits?

I am quite frustrated over the blame being placed on Bush and the total ignorance of civics and the actual facts that Congress had a hand in creating this mess, a Congress that had Obama in it.

Then there is the deficit, how can Obama blame Bush for a deficit that he helped create. He voted for the 2009 spending and since deficits are yearly and the fiscal year of the U.S. runs from October to September there is no way that Bush created a 1.3 trillion deficit in four months of operation. That simply is another liberal lie that Obama spouts many times. Bush signed the 700 billion TARP bill and Obama voted for it. Bush spent 350 billion of that bill and left 350 billion for Obama to spend. Bush had nothing to do with the GM Take over or the taxpayer funding it took for that takeover, nor did Bush sign the 842 billion stimulus plan that Obama put into place in February 2009.

I know that historians who aren't easily swayed by rhetoric will judge Bush a lot differently than partisans on either side and I believe that ranking will improve greatly with time and will be much, much better than many here think it will be. The objective results paint a different picture as I am pointing out.

Then there is Obama. I have absolutely no use for his economic policy or economic team of liberal elites who have never run a business, made a payroll, or been responsible hiring and firing decisions. Their version of economics is massive growth in the size of the govt. through massive spending. You cannot do that in a free enterprise economy until you convert it to the failed European model. The results speak for themselves and are going to get worse. 16 million unemployed Americans today and 3 trillion added to the debt. On top of that is the largest tax increase in history that will hit with obamacare. This empty suit is making Carter look good and I have no use for him or his policies. I don't buy the rhetoric, I prefer actual results.
 
ARGGGHHHH ok... gonna do this calmly... I do not have a problem with the fact that it was 50 months out of 52 months and I as I already said, the numbers you're talking about aren't what I'm calling into question. I'm calling into question:
A. the context of the numbers and
B. your implications about what the numbers mean
C. your ability to read and infer what i'm saying

I'm just going to number the things from your post to respond in a clear fashion


1. I agree that Bush did not cause the recession in 2001

2. Tax revenues increased because of economic growth. Whether or not Bush's tax cuts contributed to this growth is unclear. It's possible. However, tax revenues may (or may not) have been higher had Bush's tax cuts not been passed by congress. I've never heard anybody I hold in high esteem claim that the tax cuts "caused the deficit" which is a very strange statement in itself. I'm not sure who you're talking about or why somebody would want to simplify the discussion to that extent. Anyhow, if somebody told me that the tax cuts caused the deficit I would probably laugh at them.

3. I agree with you. Also remember, though, that if you look at the difference between the fiscal year and the actual time that each President resided, Bush's last year and Obama's first year in office resulted in nearly identical deficits.

4. I think Bush will be viewed slightly better but I still think he stunk and SHOULD shoulder a lot of the blame for the current recession/depression.

5. The problem with what you're saying is that you're blaming Obama for what's happening, and that's a gross over-simplification of the current economic situation. IMHO, the liberal model of progressive taxation works and the idea is getting money in the hands of middle class families, small businesses, and the lower class, who immediately spend that money and put it back into the economic which spurs growth. Unfortunately, America's status as an imperial power abroad, the war on drugs at home, and disgusting overspending on entitlements from health care to welfare negate so much of the good ideas of a progressive economy.

But look back at history, and at economic growth and jobs created. America's economy is not hinging on little partisan bickering. Tightening the ship and reforming the federal government's expenditures will not be the result of a partisan battle. I hope that clears up my position for you. We disagree, but whatever.
 

Bush didn't cause it? He and Cheney allowed the financial industry to be de-regulated. In the end, the recession was caused by Republicans helping Republicans make a profit at the expense of the American people.
 
Vader said:
Bush didn't cause it? He and Cheney allowed the financial industry to be de-regulated. In the end, the recession was caused by Republicans helping Republicans make a profit at the expense of the American people.
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I think you misread my statement. I said Bush didn't cause the recession in March of 2001. I don't think he helped, but when Clinton left office, it seemed pretty clear that the economy would take a little downturn. Nothing like we have now. And, if you'll notice, I went on to say Bush SHOULD shoulder a lot of blame for the current recession/depression.
 
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