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09/29/2004 05:47:00 PM · #26 |
Originally posted by Trinch:
I find it interesting that opposers are attacking the source and not the subject of the article. I guess we must all agree on the latter. |
From the opening salvo in the editorial:
Originally posted by Iconoclast:
Few Americans would have voted for George W. Bush four years ago if he had promised that,
as President, he would:
â€Â¢ Empty the Social Security trust fund by $507 billion to help offset fiscal irresponsibility and at the same time slash Social Security benefits.
â€Â¢ Cut Medicare by 17 percent and reduce veterans’ benefits and military pay.
â€Â¢ Eliminate overtime pay for millions of Americans and raise oil prices by 50 percent.
â€Â¢ Give tax cuts to businesses that sent American jobs overseas, and, in fact, by policy encourage their departure.
â€Â¢ Give away billions of tax dollars in government contracts without competitive bids.
â€Â¢ Involve this country in a deadly and highly questionable war, and
â€Â¢ Take a budget surplus and turn it into the worst deficit in the history of the United States, creating a debt in just four years that will take generations to repay. |
I wouldn't have voted for him if he had promised all those things, either.
On the other hand, it would appear that the editor is, by implication, saying that Bush DID all of those things. But, of course, he didn't.
1) The Social Security Trust Fund actually increased under the Bush Administration - from 854.9 billion at the end of 1999 to 1.484 Trillion at the end of 2003 ( an increase of 629 billion dollars. ref SS Online Trust Fund Data
2) a) Medicare was not cut by 17%. I believe that the 17% figure that the editor quotes was actually the predicted increase in cost for Medicare coverage next year. But it doesn't follow that an increase in cost is a cut in benefits.
2) b) Veterans' benefits were not reduced. Here are the funding figures for Veterans' benefits for 1999 through 2005:
2001 - 47.488 billion
2002 - 51.910 billion
2003 - 58.934 billion
2004 - 60.296 billion (estimated)
2005 - 65.285 billion (estimated) ref
OMB Budget( pdf file )
2) c) Military pay was not reduced. President Bush signed the National Defense Authorization Act for 2003. The act actually allows Department of Defense to spend money released under the 2003 National Defense Appropriations Act, which President Bush signed Oct. 23, 2003. Under the two bills, servicemembers received at least a 4.1 percent pay raise beginning Jan. 1, 2004. Many mid-level NCOs and officers will have received pay jumps of between 5.5 percent to 6.5 percent. The bills also called for an increase in the basic allowance for housing to cut out-of-pocket expenses to 7.5 percent. ref DC Military*com
3) a) Overtime pay was not eliminated for millions of Americans. All of the hype surrounding this issue are based on "estimates" and "projections", but so far, no detailed data on losses. In fact, EPI, who first published the alarming estimates acknowledges that
"The total effect of the new regulation is undoubtedly greater, but we have been unable to determine the impact of many of the changes with any precision"
3) b) The Bush Administrtion did not raise oil prices by 50%. The law of supply and demand caused prices to rise. James D. Hamilton, a professor of economics at the University of California, San Diego has this to say:
"First, oil prices have gone up to a large degree not because of a shortfall of supply but rather because of an increase in demand. The world is producing 3 million more barrels of oil each day relative to last year, nearly a 4% increase. But demand is up even more dramatically. China alone is consuming over 1 million more barrels of oil each day than it did in 2000, which is double the increased demand coming from the United States over that same period. The current situation, to a large extent, is simply that we have to share the increased supply with other consuming nations." ref here
4) The Bush Administration gave tax cuts to all kinds of businesses. It may be true that SOME of them invested in foreign employment, but it was certainly not a goal of the tax cut legislation. The "policy" that encourages offshore facilities and employment is not a Bush Administration "policy". In fact, the impetus is the the U.S. federal tax on corporations which has stood at 35% since 1986. The tax code has two anti-U.S.-Business provisions: First, the corporate tax rate is higher than any other developed country; and second, the U.S. is one of only a few countries that collects corporate taxes on foreign earnings. This, coupled with the decrease in foreign corporate tax rates over the last 8 years ( half Clinton, half Bush ) is the cause of the current trend to offshore. After the rate reduction in 1986 ( Reagan ), most industrial countries followed the U.S. lead and cut their tax rates in the late 1980s. Then another round of tax rate cuts began in the late 1990s, with the result that the average OECD corporate rate fell from 37.6 percent in 1996 ( Clinton ) to just 31.4 percent by January 2002 ( Bush ). The average corporate rate in the European Union is now 32.5 percent, down from 38.2 percent in 1996. The effect of all this is obvious - incorporate your business in a foreign country and pay taxes there at a lower rate ( of course, if your company is in a foreign country, your workers probably live nearby ). The blame, therefore is shared by the Congress, who have not changed the tax rates, and by both Clinton and Bush, neither of whom has addressed the disparity that has developed.
5) While it can truthfully be said that the Bush Administration has awarded billions of dollars in no-bid contracts WHILE CONDUCTING A WAR, he is not doing anything that his predecessor did not do WHILE AT PEACE.
Max Boot, writing for the Los Angeles Times, on April 22, says:
"Halliburton is in Iraq primarily because in 2001 it won a competitive bidding process to administer the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program, a multiyear contract to supply the Army. Halliburton has also gotten some no-bid jobs in Iraq, just as it did in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s, and for the same reason: Not a lot of other firms have similar expertise in supplying the U.S. military, and with a war on there's no time to stage a lengthy bidding process" ref here
6) Deadly, yes. "highly questionable" - well that's Opinion, so no rebuttal is possible - one cannot disprove "highly questionable"
7) We do not have "the worst deficit in the history of the United States".
First, the definition of "deficit": "The amount by which a government, company, or individual's spending exceeds its income over a particular period of time".
Then the definition of "worst" - "most severe".
So, on a strictly dollar basis, yes, the deficit in 2003 was the worst in history. But that's irrelevant.
On a percentage basis, it is NOT the worst in history. That dubious honor goes to Ronald Reagan in 1983, when the budget was overshot by over a third - 34.6% ( compared to Bush's measley 21% in 2003 ) - But you must remember that 1983 was before the Reagan Tax Cuts kicked in ( remember Trickle-down? ). By 1989, the last year of Reagan's term, the deficit had been reduced to only 15% because of those tax cuts ( and that was even AFTER the corporate tax rate had been reduced from 50% to 35% in 1986 ).
The Percentage of deficit is the far more important figure. Why? Well, consider: If your income is $50,000 per year, and your deficit is $5,000, then it's pretty bad ( 10% of your income ). But, if your income is 10 times higher, as in $500,000 a year, and your deficit is twice as "bad", say $10,000, then it really isn't so bad ( only 2% ).
ref here
I could go on and on with the rest of the Iconoclast Editorial, but it would just be more of the same B.S. being debunked. Plus, it's tiresome having to debunk the SAME B.S. again and again and again.
Ron
Message edited by author 2004-09-29 17:52:38. |
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09/29/2004 06:25:18 PM · #27 |
| isn't this sort of like when gore lost his whole STATE last time? |
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09/29/2004 07:08:35 PM · #28 |
Excellent rebuttal Ron. Thanks for all that detailed analysis.
Originally posted by RonB:
Originally posted by Trinch:
I find it interesting that opposers are attacking the source and not the subject of the article. I guess we must all agree on the latter. |
From the opening salvo in the editorial:
Originally posted by Iconoclast:
â€Â¢ Give tax cuts to businesses that sent American jobs overseas, and, in fact, by policy encourage their departure. |
4) The Bush Administration gave tax cuts to all kinds of businesses. It may be true that SOME of them invested in foreign employment, but it was certainly not a goal of the tax cut legislation. The "policy" that encourages offshore facilities and employment is not a Bush Administration "policy". In fact, the impetus is the the U.S. federal tax on corporations which has stood at 35% since 1986. The tax code has two anti-U.S.-Business provisions: First, the corporate tax rate is higher than any other developed country; and second, the U.S. is one of only a few countries that collects corporate taxes on foreign earnings. This, coupled with the decrease in foreign corporate tax rates over the last 8 years ( half Clinton, half Bush ) is the cause of the current trend to offshore. After the rate reduction in 1986 ( Reagan ), most industrial countries followed the U.S. lead and cut their tax rates in the late 1980s. Then another round of tax rate cuts began in the late 1990s, with the result that the average OECD corporate rate fell from 37.6 percent in 1996 ( Clinton ) to just 31.4 percent by January 2002 ( Bush ). The average corporate rate in the European Union is now 32.5 percent, down from 38.2 percent in 1996. The effect of all this is obvious - incorporate your business in a foreign country and pay taxes there at a lower rate ( of course, if your company is in a foreign country, your workers probably live nearby ). The blame, therefore is shared by the Congress, who have not changed the tax rates, and by both Clinton and Bush, neither of whom has addressed the disparity that has developed. |
Another excellent piece on this myth, which I've posted previously from FactCheck.org: Kerry Blames Corporate Tax Code for Shipping Jobs Overseas, But economists say "outsourcing" jobs overseas is a minor problem that Kerry's plan wouldn't do much to fix.
The upshot? "There is indeed a tax break for US-based multinational corporations to locate operations overseas. Bush isn't to blame for it -- it's been there for decades."
And, compared to the rates of the EU posted above, our corporate tax rate looks just fine (at least to the "tax the rich" crowd). But how about compared to the countries we're in more intense competition with? Here's a few: "China's effective corporate rate was only 11.3%, Britain's 18.2%, Mexico's 15.1% and Indonesia's a miniscule 0.2%." What the socialists just don't seem to get is, keep taxing corporations at double and triple the tax rates in other countries, and pretty soon they'll start moving not just jobs, but their entire companies overseas, and there won't be anything left to tax.
Originally posted by RonB:
I could go on and on with the rest of the Iconoclast Editorial, but it would just be more of the same B.S. being debunked. Plus, it's tiresome having to debunk the SAME B.S. again and again and again.
Ron |
I hear ya... :(
Message edited by author 2004-09-29 19:09:24. |
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09/29/2004 07:48:52 PM · #29 |
Wow, and the endorsements just keep on coming.
This time from President Eisenhower's son:
THE Presidential election to be held this coming Nov. 2 will be one of extraordinary importance to the future of our nation. The outcome will determine whether this country will continue on the same path it has followed for the last 3 1/2 years or whether it will return to a set of core domestic and foreign policy values that have been at the heart of what has made this country great.
Now more than ever, we voters will have to make cool judgments, unencumbered by habits of the past. Experts tell us that we tend to vote as our parents did or as we "always have." We remained loyal to party labels. We cannot afford that luxury in the election of 2004. There are times when we must break with the past, and I believe this is one of them.
As son of a Republican President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, it is automatically expected by many that I am a Republican. For 50 years, through the election of 2000, I was. With the current administration's decision to invade Iraq unilaterally, however, I changed my voter registration to independent, and barring some utterly unforeseen development, I intend to vote for the Democratic Presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry.
Read the rest here: //www.theunionleader.com/articles_showa.html?article=44657
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Finally, a real conservative that understands, as I've mentioned in previous threads, that the modern Republican party is not what it once was.
Now, time for a confession: as a young man in High School I identified myself as a Republican and held what many of my peers, I'm sure, considered conservative values. Over the years, however, I've moved to the Democratic party, because it better represents my, essentially, middle of the road values. Today I firmly consider myself a "center-left" Democrat.
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09/30/2004 06:19:05 PM · #30 |
Here are some lines from John Eisenhower's, son of president Eisenhower, endorsement of Mr. Kerry, that are simply remarkable:
"The fact is that today's "Republican" Party is one with which I am totally unfamiliar."
[...]
"In 1960, President Eisenhower told the Republican convention, "If ever we put any other value above (our) liberty, and above principle, we shall lose both." I would appreciate hearing such warnings from the Republican Party of today.
The Republican Party I used to know placed heavy emphasis on fiscal responsibility, which included balancing the budget whenever the state of the economy allowed it to do so. The Eisenhower administration accomplished that difficult task three times during its eight years in office. It did not attain that remarkable achievement by cutting taxes for the rich. Republicans disliked taxes, of course, but the party accepted them as a necessary means of keep the nation's financial structure sound."
[...]
"I celebrate, along with other Americans, the diversity of opinion in this country. But let it be based on careful thought. I urge everyone, Republicans and Democrats alike, to avoid voting for a ticket merely because it carries the label of the party of one's parents or of our own ingrained habits."
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//www.theunionleader.com/articles_showa.html?article=44657
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