Nancy Pelosi was on fine form on Friday – denouncing the people who made certain documents (now withdrawn) available on a United States government website.
As the New York Times (and, surprise surprise, a United Nations agency) reported the story it was all about wicked Republicans publishing documents that could help people build atomic bombs. Of course, what Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the left really objected to was that the documents came from the government of Saddam Hussain and show that he WAS planning to build atomic bombs right up to the invasion of Iraq (information the left has been trying to sit on for years).
The Economist (a journal that has often been very critical of President Bush and other Republicans) also published an interesting article (subscription required) on Nancy Pelosi in its present issue.
It is well know that Nancy Pelosi represents (and reflects) the extreme left San Francisco area, but her money raising activities (at least one hundred million Dollars over the last few years) are less well known, as is her history.
It is not just that Nancy Pelosi’s father was a leftist Congressman and then Mayor of the corrupt city of Baltimore (no one can help who their father is), it is the fact that Nancy Pelosi personally “kept the book” for him – i.e. the record of favours received and delivered. I do not know how the lady can keep a straight face when she talks about the “culture of corruption” in Washington DC Nancy Pelosi has been involved in corruption her whole life – but I doubt that one voter in ten knows this.
The Republicans are at least partly to blame for people not knowing what they are getting. I can guess the sort of talk that justifies just making token attacks rather than full attacks – “Nancy Pelosi is a women, we can not attack her all out as we would look like beasts” and “we can not say what Nancy Pelosi is as it would look like an ethnic slur and we do not want to upset Italian-American voters”.
So the ‘attack dog’ Republicans (or at least the Republican leadership) do not really fight – and thus help give the United States a Speaker Pelosi.
Another point that the Economist article makes is the iron discipline that Nancy Pelosi has imposed on the Democratic party. Whoever the voters think they are being presented with (“the Democrat is very nice and they went to Iraq”) the fact remains that these people will vote the big government way that Nancy Pelosi tells them to (the Republicans may have been soft on spending, but the Democrats want to spend hundreds of billions more – and it is a similar story on regulations).
Almost needless to say, the Democratic party leadership supports Nancy Pelosi – including the people set to head the key committees in the House. Barney Frank is already boasting (for example to the British Financial Times newspaper) of the world government financial services regulator he intends to help create.
There will also be lots of ‘investigations’ – designed to tie the Administration up in knots (in order to bash Bush) and, thus, lose the war (both in Iraq, and in Afghanistan – and everywhere else).
Radical Islam (of both Shia and Sunni types) will win and moderate Muslims (and the West) will lose.
I very much doubt that Nancy Pelosi actually wants this result, but she does not really care – at least not enough for the Democrats not to do it anyway.
Paul, what does “information the left has been trying to sit on for years” actually mean?
The Israelis blew up an Iraqi reactor over bomb fears more than 20 years ago, so it’s been public knowledge that Saddam would like to acquire nuclear weapons for at least that long. The left has a stash of never before seen secret plans it’s been trying (but, alas, failing) to hide for 20 years?
The Republicans are merely “soft” on spending? Generally he party line on Samizdata is that they’ve been disgracefully wreckless.
As for losing the war, I think defeat is inevitable given how the current administration continues to handle the war as it has. A change can only be for the good AFAIC, and perhaps somewhere really believes the powers of government as a force for good would wage a more successful grand war of liberation, which is a pretty statist and expensive endevour.
As for Pelosi, I read she advocates new spending before tax increased have been secured to pay it. That’s the first policy it want an actually conservative government to enact. A libertarian axiom is that if you make people pay, you make people think. The Republicans have proved that deficit spending is very dangerous, if you are concerned about the growth of government government.
Paul, you’ve said in previous posts that cutting taxes will likely fatten government coffers. By that logic higher taxes aren’t necessarily statist.
There will also be lots of ‘investigations’ – designed to tie the Administration up in knots (in order to bash Bush) and, thus, lose the war (both in Iraq, and in Afghanistan – and everywhere else).
Only the PC Police have a problem with attacking politicians. The administrations faults should be bashed to the maximum extent, and one should not be petrified into softening the blows by anti-left political correctness.
Investigations could have very positive libertarian outcomes. You can’t criticise the government effectively unless you know what it’s actually doing.
For instance, the anti-corruption investigative agency in Iraq has been closed down in shady fashion (Link). Why? My feverish libertarian paranoia reckons it’s because billions of dollars of taxpayers money is being ladelled out whatever welfare bums can catch the administration’s ear.
I doubt the current administration has a problem with adding 100s of billions of dollars to future budgets, so I don’t know what’s to lose by voting them out this year.
I agree with Kit. For a “Libertarian” writer, you’d think you’d be in favour of tieing the government in knots so it couldn’t do anything.
These Republicans have been growing the government faster than any administration since Lyndon Johnson — from a Libertarian perspective the best thing that could happen is a Democratic win in the House and Senate to split up the consolidation of power.
If we’ve learned anything from the last few years it’s that no party should control all branches of power ever again.
Kit when did I say that higher taxes were not statist?
Yes Nancy Pelosi (and the rest of the Democratic party leadership) support higher taxes (which may NOT lead to higher revenue – see later) and higher government spending – but why is this NOT statist?
The Republican record on government spending has been mixed. Defence spending has gone up (hardly a great surprise in war time) but not by nearly as much as the “more boots on the ground” people would have demanded. Entitlement program spending has also increased (but the Democrats have opposed every effort to reform entitlement program spending – the days of such Democrats as Senator Bob Kerry of Nebraska are long gone). Non defence and non entitlement program spending has also increased – but at a much lower rate than in Britian (not that this is great achievement) and HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS LESS THAN THE DEMOCRATS DEMANDED AND STILL DEMAND.
As for higher tax rates “paying” for the extra government spending that the Democrats want. The government deficit has gone down to 1.9% of G.D.P. (one of lowest in the Western world) in spite of the war and Katrina. This is partly because lower tax rates have produced MORE REVENUE. I wonder if you can work out what higher tax rates (especially on such things as capital gains tax and the higher levels of income tax) are likely to produce.
The story on regulations is the same. Some regulations have been removed and others added – but the Democrats wanted and still want vastly more regulation (and not just on a national level – on a world level also).
Using the American military as a police force in Baghdad (as demanded by the critics of the Administration) was tried last month – and more than one hundred Americans were killed (and lots of civilians were murdered by the “resistance” anyway).
The much attacked Donald Rumsfeld was proved correct – the American military should not be used as a police force to “keep order”. The American military is in Iraq to take out hard targets (that the local military and police can not) – NOT to walk about on streets on stand on street corners.
“More boots on the ground” and more “patrols to keep order” would simply mean more American dead. It is the Iraqi security forces who should police their own cities. As I wrote above the American (and other Western) mission is to hunt down hard targets, not to act as “boots on the ground” scarecrows.
Giving in to demands for the Americans to go into a police role was a key mistake in political terms (in that it meant more body bags just before the elections), but it is also a military mistake – in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The Western role must be to hunt down and destroy hard targets (fast moving operations) – leaving ordinary security to the locals.
A Western soldier standing in plain sight (“keeping order” as critics of the Administration have long demanded) is simply a target.
In short the alternative military plan that you seem to support Kit (“more boots on the ground” “patrols to keep order” and so on – a least that is the only military plan I have heard from the critics of the Administration) has already been tried – and did not work (to put it mildly). I only wish that Donald Rumsfeld had not given in to the pressure to try it (“ink spots” or “oil spots” or all the other names for this mistaken idea).
As for attacking politicians being opposed by the “P.C. left” – have you been living on the planet Mars since 2000?
The left (which controls most of the education system and the media) has attacked President Bush every day (indeed there were massive attacks on George Bush before the 2000 election, the vast majority of the news and current affairs people [and the “entertainment” people] might as well have been wearing “Vote Al Gore” badges – Vice President Gore was presented as a bit stiff, but Governor Bush was presented as a moron who got his kicks executing poor people).
The “P.C. left” only opposes attacks on their people – such as Nancy Pelosi.
My perhaps naieve hope is that the Social Democrat likes of Pelosi will be audacious enough to lay a clear increased spending + increased taxes platform to the electorate. The public will either balk at the spending, or vote for the spending which will then be regulated, like a negative externality, by the need to fund it through tax revenue.
As an analogy, my understanding is that road pricing in Singapore has reduced government spending on infrastructure. Putting it on the credit card via deficit spending would not have had the same effect.
Also, we’ve pretty clear idea of what someone like Pelosi stands for, so she’s easier argue against. And as a cheap shot, Bush unpopular, so it’s good to associate him with big government. I would have thought Paul Marks would have distanced himself from Bush, rather make a (with all due respect) silly argument that reduces to “if you’re mean to Bush, the Evil! type of muslim will destroy the world!”
I doubt there’ll be much radical change whoever wins the next election. The usual tweaking and gradualism, based on what is thought to be the Sensible Centre is at this moment in time.
Like during the Nixon administration? Go do some research on what “divided” government did for taxes, spending and regulation back then.
My predicton for divided government circa 2007: In order to continue funding for Iraq the Bush administration will agree to a tax increase. There’s your divided government. Not that the current arrangement is any better, just not any worse.
The Republican record on government spending I have already dealt with above. Yes government spending has grown as a percentage of G.D.P. (and it is not all war and Katrina), but not nearly as much as is often claimed (and much less than it has grown in Britain) and vastly less than the Democrats demanded and still demand.
Critics of the Republicans who claim that the Democrats are no worse simply have not bothered to look at the Democrat budget proposals for the last few years.
As for “what information have the left being trying to sit on” – I said what information they have been trying to sit on, that Saddam WAS planning to build atomic bombs (they also try and suppress a lot of other information). Sorry it did not all end in 1981 when Israel hit – that just is not true. Nor did it end with the 1991 war – that is not true either.
In short the media picture “the Administration was telling lies about the plans of Saddam” is itself a lie.
Just as the “Katrina was Bush’s fault” line of the media is a lie. The Governor of Louisiana (who has an “F” rating from the Cato Institute, by the way) did not call in the Federal government till it was too late – and it would have been a crime to go in without Governor Blanco’s request.
As for the Mayor of New Orleans – he just fled to a hotel and spent the crises giving interviews (while large numbers of school buses and other transport went unused). I did not notice a media campaign against either the Governor of Louisiana and the Mayor of New Orleans (at least not at the time).
Both of these people are Democrats. Is this fact really not relevant to the fact that there was no mainstream media campaign against them at the time?
As I wrote above the government deficit is 1.9% of G.D.P. (in spite of the war and Katrina) and the media (including the Economist journal) continue to give the stat of “3.6%” (which is actually an O.E.C.D. forcast dating from last year – the O.E.C.D. has got the American government deficit wrong for years and this year it is further out than ever).
Unemployment is 4.4% – but the media (other than Fox) do not pull up Nancy Pelosi on her claim that President Bush has the “worst jobs record since the Great Depression”
Again false stats are used by the left – and they get away with it.
The “hard core” libertarian position “the Democrats are no worse than the Republicans” is simply false. And (sadly) it looks like you will get to see it is false after the Democrats take the House (and perhaps the Senate) on Tuesday (or rather after the new Congress comes in next year).
As for “investigations will cause no harm unless the Administration has something to hide”.
First the left do not care about whether there is anything real or not (see the non reporting of the studies of Florida in 2000 that show that Bush DID win the State – indeed a few libertarians “joined hands with the left” to pretend that the Republicans rigged Ohio in 2004), but more importanly consider the following.
Say I want to see every e.mail (and other such) that you have ever written (and want to know every word you have said in every private meeting) and go into all the other details of your life. Would this not mess you up a bit – even if you have “nothing to hide”, especially as you know that I am going to quote you out of context and present every aspect of your life in the worst possible light.
A nice I.R.S. audit of your finances for a start. After all that will not mess you up because you have “nothing to hide”.
The idea that the war can be won with a load of partisan “investigations” going on is absurd.
Certainly, as a libertarian, I have many things I would attack the Republicans on (indeed I would not have gone back into Iraq – although that does not mean I support losing the war in Iraq now, particularly as it can not be seperated from the rest of the war against extreme factions in Islam). But I will not pretend that the Democrats are no worse than the the Republicans.
Nor will I “join hands with the left” (Murry Rothbard admitted that his late 1960’s policy was a mistake and Karl Hess explained that he consumed a lot of drugs at the time and therefore should not be blamed for what he suggested).
That a few Libertarians are going about talking about “Republican vote fraud” (and ignoring Democrat vote fraud – which happens to be REAL in many States), and even accepting alliances with such groups as the Green party is just silly.
If you want to keep taxes down and any limit on regulations and government speinding then you have to back the Republicans on Tuesday. That is not nice, but it happens to be the truth.
The same is true if you wish to prevent defeat in the war and the most extreme factions of Muslims (both Sunni and Shia) taking over the Islamic world and directing it against the West.
Of course it may well be “too late now” (I fully accept that the House looks lost – and the Senate may go as well).
I just do not want to hear people say “but we did not know, nobody told us”.
Paul — Don’t let these ‘gridlock’ types grind you down.
No matter how awful and rotten the Republicans have been (and this is indisputable fact), the Democrats are going to be an unprecedented disaster.
You are absolutely right about this.
Actually, Pelosi blames the Bush Administration, hoping that you’ve forgotten that it was CONGRESS (of which she is a part) that demanded the documents be put on the web in the first place. So yeah, let’s hold HER accountable!
You think the Republicans have been silent on Pelosi? Are you freakin’ kidding? Their mouthpieces Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity (and other lesser talk radio figures) have been beating that drum daily for months on their talk radio and TV shows.
I rather like gridlock and divided government, but I’m not voting for it this time around. It’s wartime and too much is at stake to let the children of America grab the gavel.
I just luuuuuuuuv how the NY Times article backfired as a November surprise though. It admitted way too much. It’s been fun to sit back with some hot buttered popcorn and take in the entertainment to be had all over the blogosphere afire.
BTW…the Economist Pelosi article is viewable if you start from their new Democracy in America blog and clickthrough from that blogpost. They have a new economics blog too.
If the Dems win, it’s not clear that Pelosi will be speaker.
LINK(Link)
I believe the unintended consequences of a Dem. victory will be the divisions within that party, the “MoveOn.org” branch and the more “centrist” bunch, will come out with a vengence.
Nancy Pelosi will never get the chance to be Speaker of the House. Republicans are extremely angry at the media and their constant attempt to sabotage the campaigns over the last three weeks. Insulting statements from Democrat leaders have fired up the Republican base as never before.
The Republican in my district running for Representative was down by 8 points three weeks ago. She is now ahead by 10. A gain of 18 points.
Republican turnout in 2004 was huge. The turnout in 2006 will be even larger. Republicans will retain both the Senate and the House by large margins.
DS
According, to CATO, spending increase on average 1.7% during divided gov’t, versus 5.2% under unified.(Link)
Paul, no offence taken I hope.
In past blog posts you’ve made the supply side argument that decreasing tax rates will likely increase revenue. Thus more money is delivered to the state. Hardly an anti-state policy. CATO have presented evidence that cutting taxes increases the size of government(Link)
But that said, short term stimulus aside, it seems the Bush tax cuts are unlikely to have raised revenue long term. Chris Dillow has useful links (Link). Bush’s own economists project (hey, let’s predict the future) the revenue increase from tax-cut related growth to be £30billion over the next ten years, versus about $300billion revenue loss from lower rates. Don’t forget a consumer boom can raise profits and salaries and therefore revenue.
If we are to left of the Laffer curve, higher taxes will boost revenue. Where do you think we are now on the curve?
As for Rumsfeld, he’s had 3 years post invasion and plenty of time before hand to plan. If he didn’t want Americans to be used as police then he should have made full provisions for a separate police force. If he can’t adapt when things don’t work out as planned (remember what Hayek said?), all the more reason to boot him out. Any conservative could tell Rumsfeld that the world has to be dealt with as it is, not as we would like it to be.
“As for attacking politicians being opposed by the “P.C. left” – have you been living on the planet Mars since 2000?”
Hehe, there’s no mention of the PC left in my posts 🙂 Your original post attacks criticism of Bush as a bad thing because of the people who are doing it, regardless of whether those attacks are justified. IMO that’s political correctness.
I will say that the idea that higher taxes will “finance” higher spending is false. Higher taxes (especially higher capital gains taxes and higher income taxes at the top rates) will just produce recession and lower revenue (and the recession will mean more government spending on unemployment and other such – just as minimum wage rate hikes will mean higher unemployment).
The Republicans hitting Nancy Pelosi hard? If that is so what percentage of voters know (for example) that the lady “kept the book” for her father?
If it is a majority you may call me Adolf.
Lastly the claim that it is O.K. to vote Democrat because moderate Dems will get rid of Pelosi after the election. Not if the lady wins the election they will not.
If Nancy Pelosi delivers the House her word will be law in the Democratic party (and with the mainstream media and so on).
Paul, here here. You’ve covered nearly everything so I have nothing substantive to add. I would just like to say that your posts concerning the mid-terms have demonstrated a thoughtfulness and commitment to Western Civilization sorely lacking in Libertarian circles these days. Keep it up.
Thank you Gabriel – although as my own cultural level is rather low (I am the sort of person who thinks “I like that bit of music I wonder who wrote it”) I doubt that I am much of a representative for Western Civilization.
Kit:
What you have done is to show how a statistical approach to politics is mistaken. Politicians (for all their faults) are human beings (not subatomic particles) so the only way to even make guess at what they will do is to look at what they PLAN to do (i.e. they are agents – subjects not just objects).
To say “between X year and Y year Congress was in the hands of one party and and the White House was in the hands of the other and spending did not go up much” tells you nothing at all about what will happen.
President Bush is not Captain Veto like President Ford, he is a different person. He will not fight a Democrat Congress in the same way (and he will be tied up with “investigations” anyway, in Ford’s day Nixon was the target).
Also the Democratic party leadership is more dominated by the “college people” that is has ever been before. The Democratic party, academia and the mainstream media are now all dominated by the same sort of person – collectivists. Look up what these people believe in, not what some Democrats believed in (say) 1988.
As for cutting taxes at the top rate not increasing revenue or supporting economic growth. Well if you will not believe economic theory then have a look at historical examples (you favour historical examples – you showed this with your defence of “split government”). Since the reduction in high tax rates by the Grand Duke Leopold II of Tuscany (in the late 18th century) the number of examples is impressive. I am NOT claiming that economics is a historical science (science in the sense of a “body of knowledge” not in the sense of “scientific method”), but if you want historical examples (rather than just theory) there are many of them to choose from.
Have a look at the cuts in the top rate of income tax under both Mrs Thatcher and Ronald Reagan – the rich ended up paying more money (even as percentage of total revenue) and not just in the “short term” – THEY ARE STILL PAYING MORE. The people who lost were tax lawyers and other such.
Of course this does not mean that one should not hold back government spending – of course one should. But the Democrats think that the Republicans have not increased spending enough (this is the point you just keep on missing).
On Rumsfeld:
First of all the military of Iraq were not got rid of by the United States – they mostly broke up and went home after they were defeated.
It is true that Paul Bremmer (spelling) was fairly useless when he was in charge of Iraq – but he was a State Department man (nothing to do with Rumsfeld).
“Why is there not an a police force and a military in Iraq” – there is Kit, HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF THEM.
Of course some of them are not much good (although some of them are very good) and some of the police are deeply suspect. But that is the point – if people want a free Arab country (which everyone, Republican and Democrat, says they want) rather than a dictatorship, that is what you are going to get.
Not “racism” – simply a fact. Now one can either let them handle normal security (and accept that they will not do this perfectly) and reserve Western military forces for hard targets that they can not deal with yet – or one can try the “boots on the ground”, “we will provide security” way of doing things.
As Western troops are seen as aliens (indeed are aliens) this approach will not work (it will just mean lots of people comming back in body bags as happened last month). Donald Rumsfeld did not want this – and it is ironic that the very people who are calling for him to go now (for example the military media – the newspaper types who are attacking the Administration a couple of days before an election) are the people who demanded the “boots on the ground”, “we will provide security” line (under its various names of “ink spot”, “oil spot” or whatever).
I am no soldier but I predicted this (perhaps because I am not a soldier). See my posting “ink blot madness” from months ago.
Of course I am not the only person to predict this (lots of people did), but the pressure from the establishment to “provide security for the people of Iraq” was just too great.
I say again I wish Donald Rumsfeld had held out against the idea.
I think the democrat touch down dance on the 20 yard line is a bit pre-mature. I suspect that the people of America will look hard at the lack of ideas or vision form the demos and I believe Nancy will have been picking out curtains all in vain.
In the mean time, the stupid media and democrat elites will look at what the terrorists and their few supporters are saying, declare that the will of the Iraqi people, and completely ignore the millions who want us to not leave to quickly…. like as in before the job is done.
I am a big fan of the CATO institute and I can find nothing to dispute the history of divided, though its achievements have been modest (none of them actually cut spending, just slowed teh rate of growth).
However, in each instance where the rate of growth of government was reduced (whooopppiiee!) there was one party (always the Republicans historically) who was committed at least rhetorically to restraining spending. The Nixon example is the exception, and the size and scope of the government increased considerably during that time (you think it was some tree hugging Democrat who gave the world the EPA?).
My point is: at this point in time, like the early 1970’s, there is no party dedicated to restraining the growth of government. The Bush administration has not been forced to sign increased spending bills (like Reagan was often forced to) they have championed massive increases in the Dept’s of Education, Energy, and Agriculture, 3 departments identified in the “Contract with America” for abolishment. Not to mention championing the biggest new entotlement progarm in 50 years. Does anybody believe that Bush will all of a sudden start vetoing spending bills that he would have approved under a Republican congress???????
1990’s style gridlock would be nice right now, but there is no equivalent of the Republican congress of 1995-1998 (when small government was officially abandoned by the Republican party) but none exists, even though most of the players are still the same.
Again, Democrats would be worse because they have gotten everything they wanted already (maybe in slightly smaller dollar amounts) except raising tax rates. If a Democrat congress gets anything it will be a tax rate increase, probably in exchange for continued funding for Iraq.
Greetings from Baltimore, where Nancy Pelosi nee D’Alessandro grew up and went to school.
As I understand it, the elder D’Alessandro was not a “leftist” but was indeed corrupt, as was the entire city of Baltimore and to a lesser extent still is, replete with ossified patronage. Pelosi attended high school here at the Institute of Notre Dame with current Maryland Senator Mikulski.
My own hunch is that divided government would be good in that Bush is no Nixon and the Democrats of today are more timid in the face of an organized theocratic Republican Party facing a real but probably temporary setback.
Not to “link-whore” but if any readers are interested in a Maryland local perspective from a libertarian-leaning slightly left angle, please feel free to drop by Crablaw’s Maryland Weekly.
The father was a New Deal Congresman – I fully accept that is not “leftist” in some ways by modern standards (I am an old style person). Although such things as the National Industrial Recovery Act (basically setting up a Fascist monopoly structure for industry under the National Recovery Agency) might raise a few eyebrows even now (as might the confiscation of privately owned gold and the voiding of private contracts).
I repeat that having a father who was a corrupt Mayor is NOT an argument against someone – but “keeping the book” for him certainly is.
As for government spending. The Democrats have said (endlessly) that the Republicans are not spending enough money, the Democrats have put in proposals for HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF SPENDING ON TOP OF THE REPUBLICAN SPENDING (over the past years and in promises for future years).
If the leaders of the Democrats say “the Republicans are not spending enough money” (even, absurdly, accuse the Republicans of “cuts”) and endlessly promise more spending – why should I not believe them?
The Democrat base wants more spending, the Democrat leaders want more spending – they will go for more spending (ON TOP of Republican plans).
Why can some people not understand this?
Great post, Paul.
One point I might add is that, while overall spending has not been held in check as much as fiscal conservatives would have liked under the Republicans, that spending is much less statist than “Democratic” spending in significant ways.
The Democratic answer to the retirement spending issue is Social Security, and more of it. The Republican answer is private accounts. They don’t have the votes to fully privatize it, or even to partially privatize it yet, but the answer to that is a larger Republican majority, not a smaller one. The Democrats have said they oppose private accounts on principle.
And though the big issue of Social Security remains unsettled, the Republicans did get passed as part of the Bush tax cuts an increase in the allowable contribution to an IRA, from $2000 / year to $5000 / year in 2008 — a substantial increase. And it goes up with inflation as long as the Bush tax cuts remain in effect.
Then there’s the Democratic answer to the health care issue: a single-payer system run by the federal government. The Republican answer is the Health Security Account, which allows people with a high-deductible (and thus more affordable) health insurance plan to put money tax-free into a personal HSA account that they own. They control the account, it’s portable from employer to employer and even into retirement, and any capital gains in the account remain tax-free as long as the proceeds are used for a qualified health care expense.
HSA’s are what the Republicans got in return for the Medicare drug plan in Bush’s first term. I think it’s too high a price to pay, myself, but there’s no doubt that the Democratic alternative was a larger Medicare plan and no HSA’s at all. And while they may not be the ideal libertarian solution, HSA’s are far less statist than the Democratic single-payer plan so affectionately known as HillaryCare.
And if you want to look at education, the No Child Left Behind Act also included school choice provisions that require local school districts taking federal funds to assist in the transfer of students out of failing schools if their parents request it. School choice is heresy among one of the Democrats’ strongest constituencies, the teachers’ unions. While the price for school choice was high, getting any school choice at all is a big step forward for the United States.
This is one of the things that is so frustrating about this election cycle — even conservatives and libertarians seem to have forgotten the individual-based focus of the Bush administration and are willing to embrace an almost socialist Democratic Party because, apparently, the Republicans just weren’t pure enough. Grrrrrr.
Mike
another view. haha, finally we will se exactly how corrupt this white house really is. It was so great to see the moron rumsfeld give that pathetic speech and then walk off. This dangerously moronic period in american politics is almost over. Some decent liberal people that ensure that society doesn’t go off the rails are going to come in and ensure redistribution.
One thing you all don’t understand is this simple point. Inequality brings revolution. When the right gets very greedy, the great unwashed rise up and burn and loot.
Keep wealth redistributed and you will enjoy that Mercedes, keep veering to gaping divides in income and you will have communism version 2. What is so difficult to understand about that?
The only system of government that can reliably keep big income inequalities for a long time is a dictatorship or a constant state of emergency (War on Terror)
Pelosi represents the values of much of the electorate who want to ensure that the rich do not form a club greed. All these years a quite right wing consensus had survived but its never enough for the rich, they want zero taxes… Oh well maybe there is going to be another new deal..
It is hard to know whether “George” meant to be taken to seriously or not – but I will make the judgement that he meant to be taken seriously.
Revolutions are NOT caused by a lack of high rates of income tax. Revolutions are caused by various things (clash of religion, desire for a different consititutional order [which may have nothing to do with “econmic class”] defeat in war, the work of a motivated [and often wealthy] political group – and so on).
In fact high rates of income tax and capital gains tax (amongst other things) help established elites prevent economic competition. Someone who already is a billionare is not threatened by tax rates (there are such things as tax lawyers), it is someone who is TRYING TO BECOME rich who is hurt by these taxes.
Nor do high tax rates mean more government revenue. Virtually the only thing that President Bush has done right was cutting top tax rates (even if one things that high revenues are a good thing – which I do not tend to).
As for the Welfare State (what Americans call the “entitlement programs”) reducing long term poverty over what it otherwise would have been, this is the reverse of the truth.
The Welfare State leads to an underclass – and a very discontended underclass. This is not good for political stability.
As for the point about my merc – actually I am poor.
Marxist (and neoMaxist) views are one thing, reality is quite different.
Real super rich people (such as the Kerry family or the Clintons – with all their money from the Chinese government for Bill’s speeches) do not tend to be in favour of low tax rates (as I said above such things do not really hit them).
Although, of course, even if someone is hit by high taxe rates they may still be in favour of them. People do not have to vote in their economic interests (even if they correctly judge what these interests are), they may favour policies for other reasons.
Someone like Mrs Clinton does not favour high tax rates because of fear of revolution (the lady is many things but she is not a moron) – they favour them for ideological reasons (one can trace this ideology to the “Progressive” “social gospel” of the early years of the 20th century and before).
As for Donald Rumsfeld being a “moron”. I did not support the judgement to go into Iraq – but to judge by what he has written it is clear that “George” (rather than Donald Rumsfeld) is a moron.
I agree that many people voted against the war (it was clearly the main factor) – but the idea that this war was faught to benefit corporations is bullshit. Nor is that what the voters were interested in – they were interested in the LACK OF VICTORY (the fact that Americans keep getting killed in Iraq).
That the Democrats would have done no better was not relevant – they were not in charge, and someone must take the blame (so the blame rests with the Republicans).
Certainly some corporations benefit from any policy, but that does not mean that people who support the policy are doing it because X corp benefits from him. Some people who support government subsidies for stem cell research may be paid off by California corps – by I doubt that most are.
As for corruption – there are at least as many corrupt Democrats as there are corrupt Republicans (have a look at the exJudge who Nancy P. wants to head the House the Intelligence Committee).
you all sucka teh wangzors
Revolutions are NOT caused by a lack of high rates of income tax. Revolutions are caused by various things (clash of religion, desire for a different constitutional order [which may have nothing to do with “economic class”] defeat in war, the work of a motivated [and often wealthy] political group – and so on).
george says—> I find your explanation of why revolutions happen rather misinformed, the communist era started after a series of revolutions caused by hunger (to the point of cannibalism) in Czar’s Russia, the military defeats may have been the final straw but the character of the revolutionary governments that followed clearly had putting right the excesses of the rich upon the poor under the Czar, then you had extreme hardship among the poor and a luxurious lifestyle by the aristocracy along with a small upper class. We all know how that ended…
ditto during the french revolution (after all the revolution was largely lead and manned by the Sansculottes – the people who cannot afford underwear see http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/lecture13a.html ) http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/sans_culottes.html
these people represent the vast majority of people that are hurt when a monarchy or oligarchy be it aristocratic or be it based on merit dominates like it has in the USA (which is why it is such a horrible country to live in if one if interested in things beyond stuffing their face with more artificial needs and consumerist rubbish)
In fact high rates of income tax and capital gains tax (amongst other things) help established elites prevent economic competition.
george says—> I do not regard the accumulation of money as a viable way of rising class as you apparently are seeking to do. Its almost impossible to do, because the more money is made by the many the more prices overall rise. Look at housing for example. It has just gone on to rise faster than wages, the affordability of housing is going down. The only people that have benefited mostly out of the rises in prices are the land or property owning upper class of Britain. As for competition, it almost always seems to work in favour of employers no matter what they say. There is no genuine competition between corporations, whereas its cutthroat in the jobs market (this is why now pensions and other benefits are now being taken away).
There is always going to be a class of people that is above the others the very corrupt the very criminal the very talented or the very lucky but they are such a tiny demographic they are almost a statistical error. The question is, are you going to have a sustainable structure of incomes (few poor with a guaranteed minimum for unintelligent or lazy people or the disabled the a very large middle class, then a tiny Rich gifted top) or you are going to have this unstable massive poor class living in trailers, reinforced by constant immigration so there is always cheap labour to keep wages down to please the owners at the top. A rather small middle class, and then sizeable rich alpha-male class.
It has never been explained for example why we do not try to reduce inflation by clamping down on City bonuses rather than wage restraint for the average joe…
There are societies that have a huge low income class a small middle class and a sizeable rich class, but they are in the third world..
Someone who already is a billionaire is not threatened by tax rates (there are such things as tax lawyers), it is someone who is TRYING TO BECOME rich who is hurt by these taxes.
george says—> maybe that is true, but how do you explain the fact that even people with massive fortunes still avoid tax, it is a human characteristic that greed is endless and its never enough… after the 3rd yacht they want the 4th one, the question is why not have tax make sure that those resources that would otherwise go to a 6th sports car go to provide hip replacements for grannies in agony who cannot afford them. Its a waste of resources and its immoral and moronic. Mr 6 cars may have earned it because he is a gifted accountant that helps hide money from the taxman, but that is still excessive. I think the rich should be taxed without guilt. They spend their money on stupid things like this http://www.extremelimousineinc.com/images/pic8.jpg .
Nor do high tax rates mean more government revenue. Virtually the only thing that President Bush has done right was cutting top tax rates (even if one things that high revenues are a good thing – which I do not tend to).
george says—> Bush is spending like there is no tomorrow, cutting taxes and loading the next generation with debt they cannot afford. He is an irresponsible idiot who is spending money that he hasn’t got, even republicans are alarmed at the mad direction the US is heading at fiscally so its not just me saying this. It reminds one a banana republic… GW doesn’t know how to budget.. The top tax rate cuts have not produced tangible results, they ve been spent on more luxury… The economy gets boosted by tax cuts on the poor, not on the uber rich. This president has no spine or he subscribes to an agenda of zero redistribution. African countries usually have a similar combination of no social state and a corrupt government paying its cronies and creating some theory to try to disguise it all… Or distract people by pointing out external enemies all the bloody time, if i hear that “the world has changed after September the 11th” once more i ll smack the person that said it!
To me its very simple, GW Bush is a corrupt president, he does whatever people that give his party money tell him to do. He is not a steady hand on the wheel of government, and his government is incompetent. He made a mess anything he touches (just like when he tried to be an oilman) and if it wasn’t for his family he would be a drunk in an alley.
The Welfare State leads to an underclass – and a very discontended underclass. This is not good for political stability.
george says—> Whereas in the US which by comparison to europe is much more liberal there isn’t an underclass?
Come on giving the poor money taken from the rich makes them poorer? If that is so states like sweden or denmark would not exist. Scandinavia is a region that is living proof that high taxes can be combined with happiness, little crime, social cohesion and equality, stellar economic performance, and low unemployment in DECENT jobs with FREE healthcare and decent pensions.
The US is a country run by the rich for the benefit of the rich, and maybe for a tiny trickle of people that are very talented that join the rich class and assume its values. Increasingly this social mobility is hard to find..
As for the point about my merc – actually I am poor.
george says—> in that case you should join a union, unionised workers are the best paid and they have pensions. sure there are some geniouses like bill gates that high taxation is discouraging, but that is a tiny demographic, most people like you or me of medium education skills and intelligence are better off in an egalitarian system. Your belief that good thingscome to those that work hard is false. Mostly crime is the fastest and most effective wayto change class affiliation. Professions become more and more closed, and wage competition is centred on cleaners not accountants…
When one day you’ll find that you cannot get healthcare because of less and less redistribution then try to compete in the market-place with failing health… like americans do and are increasingly fed up…
Although, of course, even if someone is hit by high taxe rates they may still be in favour of them. People do not have to vote in their economic interests (even if they correctly judge what these interests are), they may favour policies for other reasons.
george says—> i think you ve been brainwashed away from your own interests. If you want a pension and free healthcare when you are old, the money has to come from the rich and the middle class (progressively). If the rich are left untaxed (increasingly true) the middle class will want to get tax cuts too. So things that keep Britain in the civilised world and prevent us from becoming like african countries in terms of health like the NHS are becoming unaffordable (in large part because drug companies have also started abusing their oligo/monopolies). Why was it again that although after the loss of empire and 2 world wars in the UK many people had decent pensions in real terms and our generation has to be happy with “stakeholder” pensions (i.e. rubbish)? The decline of unionism has caused a simultaneous decline in pension and benefits provision as well as expanding responsibilities at work for static salaries.
Someone like Mrs Clinton does not favour high tax rates because of fear of revolution (the lady is many things but she is not a moron) – they favour them for ideological reasons (one can trace this ideology to the “Progressive” “social gospel” of the early years of the 20th century and before).
george says—> to me this means that there should be a large left wing formation in the US to represent people to the left of the democrats. At the moment they have 2parties representing similar interests. Snap out of it, the amrican dream is an illusion, very few people become rich if they start poor and only if they are exceptionally talented or lucky but usually both, normally if you start poor you die poor. nearly all the masters of the universe were all born with a silver spoon in their mouth both in the democrats and the republicans, this shows that the land of opportunity stuff is now over… there is no social mobility anyway. Privatised education is becoming the strongest way of preventing social mobility now…
As for Donald Rumsfeld being a “moron”. I did not support the judgement to go into Iraq – but to judge by what he has written it is clear that “George” (rather than Donald Rumsfeld) is a moron.
george says—> i dont agree, i didnt do anything moronic, whereas Rumsfeld and Bush did, they attacked a country that without a dictatorship would partition. They got greedy and they thought only in terms of the military bases they would build and how much their chums in Halliburton would gain.
Countless foreign office people warned both blair and the americans that iraq would fall into civil war, the french also did their best to warn as well as did the germans. Now that the pet theories have hit the brick wall that is realpolitik we will see an increasingly ridiculous bush following belatedly the traditional foreign policy recipes of the 90es and before… But its way too late for that… The reason why James Baker’s people are wise is because they recognise the limitations of american power and have read history, particularly iraqi history…
I agree that many people voted against the war (it was clearly the main factor) – but the idea that this war was faught to benefit corporations is bullshit.
george says—> why not? look at the huge corporate campaign contributions bush got. do you think that they didnt expect tangible kickbacks? Cheney’s old firm benefited massively and still defrauded the US government. These are billions of dollars we are talking about. Do you believe that corporations have ethics? they broke no law by supporting bush in starting a war, they met their corporate aims, maximise value for the shareholders by investing in the corrupt US political system, and their investment paid off handsomely. Why was it that there was no french company providing logistical support to the US invasion, there was no competition, it was directly given to halliburton.
I think the bush whitehouse is a massively corrupt administration that used a war to pass on state funds to well connected corporations. Bush thought that he could achieve some strategic objectives in controlling oil and police the area and iran via iraq. Except he gambled and lost because he applied western rules in an area where they dont work.
Nor is that what the voters were interested in – they were interested in the LACK OF VICTORY (the fact that Americans keep getting killed in Iraq).
george says—> except everybody had warned this would happen! They were hushed up or villified. Lack of victory would be nothing to worry about… nuclear iran is now what we got partly as a result, there is no positive outcomes out of iraq i can see only negatives, the US is trapped there, when it should be free to tackle Iran and north korea. Not only is there no victory, its a massive defeat, because of bad decision making about iraq… Greed can work against you..
Certainly some corporations benefit from any policy, but that does not mean that people who support the policy are doing it because X corp benefits from him. Some people who support government subsidies for stem cell research may be paid off by California corps – by I doubt that most are.
george says—> Defence is a small oligopolistic market with special rules. You assume free markets, in the US the free markets exist when it comes to toothbrushes, the military-industrial complex doesn’t do free markets… The sums we are talking about are vast has transformed their prospects…
As for corruption – there are at least as many corrupt Democrats as there are corrupt Republicans (have a look at the exJudge who Nancy P. wants to head the House the Intelligence Committee).
george says—> yep that is why america needs coalition governments, trust busting and regulation with teeth (as in cartel busting) social spending.
With the rise of China, maybe the US soon will join europe in the club of the ex superpowers focusing on the welfare of its citizens rather than the further enrichment of the rich..
You are simply wrong George. The Russian Revolution (at least the Novermber 7th [our dating system] one) was a coup organized by Lenin (a noble who was not poor) and other non poor people. Such things as the Russian trade union movement were not Bolshevic (although a Marxist would point out that unions do not tend to represent the poorest people of course).
Military defeats (and other factors – such as the first Revolution which led to the getting rid of the internal security police) made the Russian state oddly vulnerable to an elite group of Marxist opportunists (the winning over of the Latvian Rifles as mercenaries in the early part of the Revolution was vital) – of course without the support of Imperial Germany (which viewed Lenin and his followers as a way of knocking Russia out of the war) Lenin would not have had his chance.
There was mass starvation later in Russia (both under Lenin and under Stalin – indeed TENS OF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE died), but this did not lead to revolution. The Marxists (certainly the Marxists of Lenin’s faction) may have always been a small minority of the Russian population – but they were totally ruthless and this ruthlessness made revolts against them difficult to organize (for example Stalin always had people killed not on the basis of what they HAD DONE, but on the basis of what they MIGHT DO – which is quite rational in its way).
I would beg you to read such works as the “Gulag Archipelago” for Russia under Lenin and his followers (as well as such works as “August 1914” for the almost demented incompetance of the previous regime). But I admit that works by nonRussians (such as Richard Pipes and Robert Conquest) have merit when thinking of Russia in the 20th century.
As for the French Revolution – certainly harvest failures played a part (although they were caused by volcanic activity in Iceland – not something that higher taxes on the noblity, there were some taxes on the nobility, could have either prevented or even mitigated).
The Revolution itself was financed by the richest man in France (the Duke of Orleans, it is perhaps no accident that colours of the French Republic just happen to be the same as his colours, although later his friends turned against “Citizen Equality” and excuted him – poetic justice) and was organized by well off lawyers (a mob can always be found – if there is both money and dedicated men ready to stir up a mob). Although, of course, a very important factor was the great weakness of Louis XVI (the utter unsuitablity for any position of power of both Nicholas II in Russia and Louis XVI is a vital factor – these were men who had the imprint of whoever last sat on them).
By the way really poor people (people who are semi naked and starving) are actually (contrary to what you have been taught) rather passive. Lack of food over a long period of time leads to a lack of energy and a listless acceptance of things.
Of course the old Marxist account was that the French Revolution was a “Capitalist” one – but factory owners were not a big factor, and nor did the revolutionaries follow policies that were in the interests of factory owners (indeed for a time all factories were taken over by the government).
Your faith in “anti trust” (“trust busting”) seems to indicate that you do not understand that such regulations do not promote free competition, they destroy it (even some Marxists have made this point).
The neoclassical economic model and the regulations that people influenced by it have pushed into effect have done great harm. Both in the United States and in many European countries.
If you wish to know about these things (as well as the harm of welfare spending – even more so in many European countries than in the United States) I suggest that you go to the Ludwig Von Mises Institute website. At least they share your hatred of President Bush and the war in Iraq (rather more than I do) so not all the works you will find there will come as a shock to you.
I apologize for the word “moron” – however you did use it first (concering Donald Rumsfeld). As for Rumsfeld’s last major speech – I was not talking about the words spoken with President Bush and Mr Gates, I meant the speech a few days later.
One can disagree with someone’s policy without calling them names – something we both should remember.
i think and feel that its time to start healing our nation and people. i would love to see a full parden for the american talband youth. a full pardon with no strings attached, so that he may tell his side of this most intresting and im sure amazing story. the american people love our right of free speech, and our equal need to know everything.
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