Posts by James Bremner
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Webweaver's last post is right on the money re Hillary and independents & McCain.
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RB,
The problem in the US is on the expenditure side of the docket, not the revenue side. Here is a link to the Congressional Budget Office's historical data. The CBO suck at predictions because they use static rather than dynamic modelling, but historical data is historical data.http://www.cbo.gov/budget/data/historical.pdf
The revenue side has been a spectacular success, growth from 2003 to 2007 from $1.8t to $2.6t, nearly 10% per year growth. Now if spending had been held to reasonable levels, the US would be in great shape. That is good tax policy and a powerhouse economy at work. Under Bubba revenues grew at 7.5% under a tax regime that was improved several times after 1994, and the powerhouse US economy.
There is money for conventional economic stimulus, it will be borrowed, but that is not my concern. Rebates and other one off conventional economic stimulus is a waste of time, it is a deadweight loss that will generate no significant economic activity and therefore no significant tax revenues. Bush's rebates in 2001 were a waste of money, the 2008 version will be no different.
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Emma,
You wrote:
Which is pretty much what I meant. You can 'set agendas' all you like, but if you can't get a bill passed? That's why you guys invented the phrase 'lame duck president', right?
No matter what happens in the Presidential in Nov, the Dems will still hold both the House and the Senate, so a President Obama would expect the Congress would pass his agenda. There is no way that a President Obama or Hillary would be a lame duck in at least the first 2 years of their presidency.
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Danielle,
Read the article linked to below for a glimpse of what some aspects of a 2nd Clinton presidency would look like. Now Dick Morris is no fan of the Clinton's he has his big anti Clinton drum that he bangs on endlessly, but in the article he makes a compelling case citing some actions of Bill's that are known.http://www.dickmorris.com/blog/?p=252
Morris describes and Craig cited a NYT aricle about a deal Clinton brokered in Kazakhstan that netted his library $131m (in reality Bill, the library is just a money laundering exercise).
Not that there aren't other corruptocrats in D.C, but the Clintons set the standard and broke all the records on sleeze from Jan 1993, and they haven't let up since, having them out of play would be a very good thing.
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Emma,
You wrote " ... presidents don't make policy'. I think I am reading your post correctly.
Presidents most assuredly do make policy. In fact depending on factors like their popularity and which year of their term it is etc. they set the policy agenda, in fact all agendas, in Washington and the US. Of course they still have to get it passed by both Houses of congress.
If Obama is in the White House, he will be doing policy by the bucket load, which bearing in mind his level of experience, or rather inexperience, gives one pause.
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Wow, look at this, Hillary is having money problems!! Add that to the list of things that I would never have expected to happen that have happened.
http://thepage.time.com/2008/02/06/page-exclusive-some-clinton-senior-staff-working-without-pay/
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0208/Clinton_loaned_her_campaign_5_million.html
Five reasons Hillary should be worried, according to Politico. Hard to argue with them.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0208/8363.html
Obama really may win the Dem nomination. I guess I have afforded the Clinton machine too much respect.
Although I don't agree with his policy positions, if Obama does knock off Hillary, I will feel forever in his debt. By taking out the Clintons, he will have done more to clean up Washington than anyone or anything else.
Hopefully Hillary and Bill will pour lots more of their stash into the campaign, and still lose. Koed in the political world and broke. It has the feeling of a dream that is too good to be true.
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Hillary the lesser threat to McCain
http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080206/NATION/476091143/1001
Here is an article that outlines the polling on Johnny Mac v Hill. It is from the Washington Times, but it is consistent with everything I have read and heard from numerous sources on the subject.
Obama would have a much better shot at winning, but he could also implode based on his inexperience and his uber liberal voting record and policy positions. America is a moderately conservative country (twice as many Americans self identify as conservative than self identify as liberal). Being too liberal could be a real problem in the General.
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So it turns out the last minute polls in CA weren't correct, no big last minute swings for Obama or Romney. But Clinton and Obama are essentially tied for delegates at this point, it really is fascinating but I would still shade the race towards Clinton.
The longer the Dem contest goes on, the more it hurts the Dems chances of winning in Nov because the Clintons will go dirty again, they can't help themselves, it is very much a part of who they are as people. Hillary wasn't joking when she said "now the fun part begins" a few weeks ago when the dirt was beginning to fly.
Obama is very impressive as a speaker and as someone who is refreshingly genuine, and it looks like he doesn't have any significant skeletons in his closet because if the Clinton's dumpster divers haven't found anything by now, it almost certainly doesn't exist.
It is interesting to note that a key firewall for Hillary in CA (and in TX coming up) is Hispanics, who apparently won’t vote for a black candidate. If there was this kind of racial overtone in the Repub race, it would be all over the news, but it hardly gets a mention.
McCain will be okay as a candidate and as a President, if he gets that far. He can definitely beat Hillary, no doubt about that. Make no mistake (Neil) that there is a deep vein of antipathy against the Clintons in the US. Most things are lined up pointing to a Dem win in Nov, like they were in 1988, but a lousy candidate can screw the pooch no problem. And Hillary simply is not a good candidate, she is not likeable or charismatic, and looks like a phony when she tries to be, and she (and Bill) have more baggage than any politician in living memory.
Bush's budget is pitiful; it represents a truly massive increase in Govt expenditure over the time he has been in office. Military exp is only a small part of the increase, it seems like there is no corner of Govt that Bush didn’t deem fit to piss taxpayers money all over. With the massive increase in tax revenue that the US has had over the last few years, the US should be rolling in surpluses, paying down Govt debt and cutting taxes again to keep things moving. But no, we have to have continued deficits and now a stupid "stimulus package" that will be almost totally ineffective.
Dems can't hold their head high though, every time Bush proposed a new program or an increase in Govt exp, all you heard from the Dems was "it is not enough" and demands for even more spending. It is pathetic, a plague on both their houses.
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Well, your beloved scientific process certainly appears to have broken down in the case of the Lancet study doesn't it?
So we plebs should just bow down before your great wisdom and let the wise scientists dictate to us what is right and what is wrong as they look down on us from their great ivory towers? No thanks.
Wisdom and intelligence are not the same thing, as many scientists and academics prove on a regular basis.
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to support a solipsistic belief that scientific articles are mostly 'a load of crap'.
Kracklite,
Go back and read what I wrote. I never said anything of the kind.I wrote
that "scientific studies" by respected organizations that appear in respected publications that are taken very seriously and impact public attitudes and potentially public policy can in fact be almost certainly a complete load of shit.The key word is "can", no implication that all scientific studies are wrong, or anything like it. There should have been a "be' after 'certainly", not that makes any difference to the meaning of my post.
Science is the foundation of the modern world we live in. My point was simply that we shouldn't automatically accept the findings of scientific studies as fact. Many dramatic claims seem to be automatically be reported and treated as fact when skepticism and further scrutiny would be the more appropriate course of action. The Lancet study being a case in point.