Bill Clinton featured in new McCain ad
Excellent new ad that puts the blame for the Fannie/Freddie mess where it belongs, at the feet of the Congressional Democrats. McCain's campaign should be running this in all the battleground states, these people are the reason for the mess...
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More lies. McCain's big "push" for more regulation consisted of co-sponsoring a bill introduced by Hagel THAT WAS NEVER EVEN SCHEDULED FOR DEBATE. It was clearly designed as a C.Y.A. piece of legislative malarkey designed for just such a public relations emergency. Meanwhile, he has built his career as John "Fundamentally a Deregulator" McCain and everybody knows it.
The Republicans had control of Congress for TWELVE YEARS until the last election in 2006. They have been in control of the White House for the last EIGHT years. To make the claim that this mess is the fault of the Democrats is ludicrous. The Republicans will blame anybody and anything rather than take responsibility for their own short-sighted greed-based policies.
Only someone with as low an opinion of the American voter as McCain seems to have would try to make such an obviously stupid argument. But then, he selected Palin as his V-P, so it's clear he thinks we're all a bunch of idiots who can be manipulated into believing that the steaming piles of fresh B.S. served up hourly by his campaign are actually Chateaubriand.
Well, bon appetit to anyone whose nose is so bad they can't smell what the Lyin' Chef is serving up. As for me: "thinks but no thinks."
Wait a minute... In the ad the voice says “Democrats blocked the reforms” with a graphic dated 9/14/08. Then “Loans soared” with a graphic dated 9/30/99.
A bit of revisionist history????
All it shows is that in 1999 somebody knew that mortgages were soaring. And people (quoted in 2008) are looking at history.
Dating the quotes from when the quotes were made is not "revisionist" history. It's accuracy.
Beliefnet could just let the RNC post their ads here themselves and they could just take out the middle person.
When "W" came into office, there was a budget surplus. "W" and friends went through that in about 2 years. So now it is the Democrates fault that the economy in this country is tanking? "Sorry Charlie", that won't cut it. McCain and company are trying to convince folks that the Republicans aren't responsible for this mess. Hopefully no one will believe that story.
S. America Watches As U.S. Alters Free-Market Tune - All Things Considered, 9/30/08. Not pretty.
Dennis Kucinich had some incisive things to say about the current bailout discussion (and before you conservatives start snickering into your coffee, he offers high praise for the House Republicans who balked at the original bill).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFgZrNPorMM
There's also an excellent article by a Nobel Prize winning economist here:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081013/stiglitz
When Clinton left office, we had a $236 billion surplus and a projected ten year surplus of $5.6 trillion. Bush blew through the surplus in his FIRST YEAR IN OFFICE.
Here is an excerpt from a prophetic article published in 2004, which offers one of the clearest histories and explanations of the DISASTROUS results of Republican economic policies I have seen:
"When the ultimate collapse will occur, whether it comes with a bang or a whimper, how it will be triggered, and how severe it will be are as yet unknown. But as Herbert Stein, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under Richard Nixon was fond of saying, “Things that can’t go on forever, don’t.”
"The first signs of impending trouble are the exploding budget deficits themselves. They began, of course, under the parlous economic stewardship of Ronald Reagan. Reagan cut the marginal tax rate on the wealthiest of Americans from 70% to 38%. He promised it would spur an orgy of investment and rocket the economy to new levels of production and prosperity. Instead, his “supply side economics” did the exact opposite. It produced the deepest recession since the Great Depression.
"Output fell 2.2% in 1982 while budget deficits soared. When Reagan took office in 1981, the national debt stood at $995 billion. Twelve years later, by the end of George H.W. Bush’s presidency, it had exploded to $4 trillion. Reagan was a “B” grade movie actor and a doddering, probably clinically senile president, but he was a sheer genius at rewarding his friends by saddling other people with debts.
"Bill Clinton reversed Reagan’s course, raising taxes on the wealthy, and lowering them for the working and middle classes. This produced the longest sustained economic expansion in American history. Importantly, it also produced budgetary surpluses allowing the government to begin paying down the crippling debt begun under Reagan. In 2000, Clinton’s last year, the surplus amounted to $236 billion. The forecast ten year surplus stood at $5.6 trillion. It was the last black ink America would see for decades, perhaps forever.
"George W. Bush immediately reversed Clinton’s policy in order to revive Reagan’s, once again showering an embarrassment of riches on the already most embarrassingly rich, his “base” as he calls them. He ladled out some $630 billion in tax cuts to the top 1% of income earners. In true Republican fashion, they returned the favor by investing over $200 million to ensure Bush’s re-election. Do the math. A $630 billion return on a $200 million investment: $3,160 for $1. I’ll give you $3,160. All I ask is that you give me $1 back so I can keep the goodness flowing. Do we have a deal? Republicans know return on investment.
"But the cost to the public has been a return to the exploding deficits of the Reagan years. Bush blew through Clinton’s surplus in his first year. The 2004 deficit reached $415 billion, a record. Still, its real size is masked by the fact that Bush has shifted $150 billion from the Social Security trust fund in order to make the shortfall look smaller. It’s like pretending you’re richer when you move money from one pocket to another. Both sums have to be repaid, so the real amount borrowed is the $415 billion “nominal” deficit plus the $150 billion from Social Security or $565 billion.
"This shell game with federal trust funds taints all official forecasts about Bush’s deficits going forward. For example, the Congressional Budget Office estimates Bush’s cumulative ten year deficit at $2.3 trillion, to be sure, a breathtaking shortfall from the $5.6 trillion surplus he inherited from Clinton. But as with the yearly number, this one ignores the trust fund sleight of hand, an omission of some $2.4 trillion. When this is added back in, Bush’s ten year deficit leaps to $4.7 trillion, $10.3 trillion short of Clinton’s number.
"But even that number is understated because the CBO forecasts are based on current law. Bush’s tax cuts have not yet been made permanent. If Bush is re-elected and the cuts are made permanent, that would add another $3.2 trillion to the shortfall. It was not too long ago that a $3.2 trillion increment to anything would have made sober people’s noses bleed but such figures are mere accounting details to the Big Thinkers in the White House, especially since it will not be their constituents [Bush's "base," the top 1%] who are paying it back.
"Add it all together—the “nominal” deficit, the stealth siphoning from Social Security, and the permanent effects of Bush’s tax cuts—and the 10 year deficit explodes to a mind-boggling $7.9 trillion. Within ten years, the government will owe more than $15 trillion. And this, at precisely the time the government needs fiscal solvency to begin paying the Baby Boomers their Social Security.
This run-up in debt represents the most rapid, predatory looting of public wealth in the history of the world."
www.commondreams.org/views04/1022-26.htm
If Bush's tax policies can be separated from the spending on a war that few people wanted and fewer people want to fund (IF they can be separated), we might see that the deficits come from the war, not the tax code.
Even Obama said that he'd delay tax increased if the economy was weak. In order to stimulate the economy, you have to stimulate the money-making machine.
i think that you overstate the stimulation that the top 1% of the richest of the rich actually give to the economy. it's rarely these 1% who start new industry that drive job creation.
"If Bush's tax policies can be separated from the spending on a war that few people wanted and fewer people want to fund (IF they can be separated), we might see that the deficits come from the war, not the tax code."
"might," but wouldn't. in 2005, there was still a $370B deficit without considering iraq spending.
bush has constantly excluded war spending of afghanistan and iraq from the federal budget to obscure the real cost and its damage to the debt. he shifts money from this to that, borrows and borrows and borrows. "cooking the books" is what it's called in the business.
And it should end. Iraq is why many (former) Republicans I know are voting Obama.
There's a reason for the term "neocon". We want a true conservative, and since there isn't one available, McCain is way closer than Obama.
"There's a reason for the term 'neocon'. We want a true conservative, and since there isn't one available..."
i'll give you that much. but with obama, you have at least a tax plan that will damage the federal debt less than mccain's. go figure.
you also end up with someone who's health care (really health insurance) plan is more comprehensive and more effective (yes, i've read the link that you provided, even before you provided it). but since clinton is no longer a candidate, here is another analysis that compares obama's plan to mccain's:
http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE4911E220081002
read the analysis at www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/publications_show.htm?doc_id=707948
I noticed once again the reference to the CBO projected 10 year budget surplus of $5.6 trillion that was issued in January 2001, at the end of the Clinton administration. Just a quick read of the 5 page summary included in the 190 page report and you will see the CBO said the budget may return to deficts without any policy chabges by the next president. How can this be? The $5.6 trillion surplus was based on the historically high tax revenues to GDP associated with the dot-com boom and the high tax to GDP ration was assumed by the CBO to continue for the next 10 years. As we now know the dot-com boom was a bust before Clinto left office. Therefore the biggest assumption in the 2001 CBO report proved to be an invalid assumption. Also, the CBO is required by law to project expenses without taking into consideration any demands associated with an increase in polulation. The CBO is non-partisan, but it still must follow the budgeting laws dictated by congress. There has been and continues to be considerable desception associated with the $5.6 trillion surplus budget projection. http://youtube.com/reportcard2000
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