[I]Only one in four Americans believe President Bush is a better president than his father, George H. W. Bush, a new CNN poll has found.[/I]

[URL]http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/11/21/bush.poll/index.html[/URL]

I feel sorry for him - psychologically, it's one of the worst things to hear - guess he deserves it

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I'd like to know who the one out of four actually are and what would they think if they were told Bush sr.'s outlook for iraq in the persian gulf war in the context of what has happened today...

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at this point, nuke the entire place and put in our own drilling stations. fuck em. kill em and take thier shit. wait, they only have oil and trouble.

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[quote=thesightless;410694]at this point, nuke the entire place and put in our own drilling stations. fuck em. kill em and take thier shit. wait, they only have oil and trouble.[/quote]

Can't nuke.... you'd burn up the oil. :lol:

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[QUOTE=rubyraks;410690]I'd like to know who the one out of four actually are and what would they think if they were told Bush sr.'s outlook for iraq in the persian gulf war in the context of what has happened today...[/QUOTE]

no kidding. I have no axe to grind with the elder Bush at all. He didn't have the most fruitful presidency, but I voted for him anyway.

W could learn a lot from his dad about rational foreign policy by reading 1998's "[I]A World Transformed[/I]":

[QUOTE]Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging in "mission creep," and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible. We had been unable to find Noriega in Panama, which we knew intimately. We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well. Under the circumstances, there was no viable "exit strategy" we could see, violating another of our principles. Furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-Cold War world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different ? and perhaps barren ? outcome.[/QUOTE]

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[quote=RiseandShine;410681][I]Only one in four Americans believe President Bush is a better president than his father, George H. W. Bush, a new CNN poll has found.[/I]

[URL]http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/11/21/bush.poll/index.html[/URL]

I feel sorry for him - psychologically, it's one of the worst things to hear - guess he deserves it[/quote]

i am shocked that 75% think it. I would have thought that 100% thought jr was worse

Re: Worst than the father

[quote=speciale;411084]i am shocked that 75% think it. I would have thought that 100% thought jr was worse[/quote]

For the economy, the current Bush admin. has been far better.

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that is true. compartmentalize his shit, and there are a few thigns that are rokcing. its just that most people weigh the war far more heavily than domestic policiy at this point, and i dont blame them, early on, we were doing ok, but through sheer stupidity, we have become stuck in the proverbail quicksand.

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[quote=thesightless;411091]that is true. compartmentalize his shit, and there are a few thigns that are rokcing. its just that most people weigh the war far more heavily than domestic policiy at this point, and i dont blame them, early on, we were doing ok, but through sheer stupidity, we have become stuck in the proverbail quicksand.[/quote]

I was just giving a reason why 100% of people might not think Bush 2 is worse than Bush 1. ;)

I don't think there was any possible way to depose Saddam and have a good solution. So it's not that Bush's plans are stupid... it's that it was an impossible task to begin with. Probably better to have not started it in the first place.

Like I said before, maybe in another thread.... Saddam, with the illusion of WMDs, was an excellent deterrant to Iran. But with him gone, now there's nothing stopping Iran from taking over Iraq.... except the USA military. If Iraq can't defend themselves, and we leave.... we're all fucked.

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no, bush 2 is worse than bush one.

he surrounded himself with some of the most half assed , half brained staff, he kept them around for years after 70% of this place called for a change, and he tried to run za PR war as opposed to a violent war, which was the correct option. now he is denying some vital facts about iraq. corruption within gov't, openly no less, the insurgency and those aiding it, remmeber bin laden? etc etc etc que toasty here.;

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Apples and Oranges. Two different people, two different times. I do not buy that liberal bull shit. Go bark at a different tree.

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[quote=asdf_admin;411097]Apples and Oranges. Two different people, two different times. I do not buy that liberal bull shit. Go bark at a different tree.[/quote]

I agree

[IMG]http://www.therussellinn.com/images/tree-dog.jpg[/IMG]

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[quote=subterFUSE;411087]For the economy, the current Bush admin. has been far better.[/quote]

talk about the lesser of two evils. both of them were absolutely awful for the economy. for a right wing president to run that kind of deficit is pathetic. fiscal responsibility my ass...

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[quote=day_for_night;411335]talk about the lesser of two evils. both of them were absolutely awful for the economy. for a right wing president to run that kind of deficit is pathetic. fiscal responsibility my ass...[/quote]

Hmmm... the economy is bad right now?

Dow is at 12,300 (all-time high) Taxes are lower, yet tax revenues are highest in history. Deficit has been cut in half more than 2 years ahead of schedule. 4.3% unemployment (lower than any point during Clinton) Rich are paying a larger percentage of the tax burder than at any time during Clinton.

I will concede your point that the Bush admin has been spending a lot, but if the economy is doing so poorly right now, then it's news to me.

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housing market is going in the crapper...which is often a sign of a looming recession. your currency has gone down significantly against pretty much all other major currencies worldwide.

the fact that the dow is up and unemployment is low is blind luck. the guy can barely spell 'economy', let alone have some measure of control over it.

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[quote=day_for_night;411451]housing market is going in the crapper...which is often a sign of a looming recession. your currency has gone down significantly against pretty much all other major currencies worldwide.

the fact that the dow is up and unemployment is low is blind luck. the guy can barely spell 'economy', let alone have some measure of control over it.[/quote]

It's all directly linked to tax cuts. When you lower taxes, it spurs the economy.

It's so funny to listen to democrats cry about "tax cuts for the rich." When Clinton had the top tax rate at nearly 40%, the wealthy class in this country paid less % of the total tax burden than they do now.... and tax revenues are higher now than at any time in history. So this idea of raising taxes on the rich to bring in more revenues is absurd. If you tax more, you get less... because you restrict business, investment, and spending. Unemployment increases, too.

No.... it's not blind luck. It's fundamental economics at work. If you let people keep their money, they spend and invest more.... which is good for our economy.

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[quote=subterFUSE;411499]It's all directly linked to tax cuts. When you lower taxes, it spurs the economy.[/quote]

the qualifier to that is....maybe. the economists are never sure what will stimulate the economy. lowering taxes may or may not, depending on how the flow of funds is altered. if the lower taxes create more business profits that are then not reinvested in the local economy, lowering taxes can do zilch for a domestic economy. reverse holds true as well.

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[quote=subterFUSE;411499] No.... it's not blind luck. It's fundamental economics at work. If you let people keep their money, they spend and invest more.... which is good for our economy.[/quote]

and you obviously don't remember the 80s..."regan-omics" was a disaster for the economy. that whole trickle down thing didnt exactly take hold like they thought it would...

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[quote=day_for_night;411519]and you obviously don't remember the 80s..."regan-omics" was a disaster for the economy. that whole trickle down thing didnt exactly take hold like they thought it would...[/quote]

Reagan came into office facing serious economic problems leftover from the 1970s. Chief among them, historically high inflation. The Federal Reserve was forced to hike interest rates sharply to combat the inflation, and the result was a recession early in Reagan's admin. But his economic policies resulted in the largest peacetime economic boom in American history, and created 35 million jobs. Only a short downturn of about 8 months between 1990-1991 mars these statistics. (And this occurred during Bush 41)

Both Reagan, and Bush 43 have shown that cuts in taxes yield more tax revenue, not less as democrats like to claim.

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[quote=day_for_night;411335]talk about the lesser of two evils. both of them were absolutely awful for the economy. for a right wing president to run that kind of deficit is pathetic. fiscal responsibility my ass...[/quote]

running a surplus is worse, imo....

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[quote=day_for_night;411519]and you obviously don't remember the 80s..."regan-omics" was a disaster for the economy. that whole trickle down thing didnt exactly take hold like they thought it would...[/quote]

Reagon facilitated an economic environment that allowed massive amounts of money to be poured into research and development. The boom of the 90's was a result of this. This coming from an anti-republican, too.

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[quote=day_for_night;411519]and you obviously don't remember the 80s..."regan-omics" was a disaster for the economy. that whole trickle down thing didnt exactly take hold like they thought it would...[/quote]

Look at some basic economic indicators. The economy grew quite strongly in the 1980s and there was no "disaster". What you may be getting at, tho, is that the economic gain of that period was not nearly evenly distributed and did not benefit all constituents. This is true. And it's true of any period, regardless of who is in charge.

Also, sustained low unemployment and overall market growth doesn't just happen by "blind luck". And it doesn't matter what Bush can or can't spell, because he doesn't have that much to do with it. Bush doesn't set monetary policy and interest rates. The Fed does.

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yes regan-onmics did work and help. it just took a decade for the capital improvements to generate income. the trickle down that he toted didnt take 2 year, it took 8.

and clinton did everything he could to help it, albeit a bit overzealous in reagrds to the tech industry and moreso, his underlings went entirely too far early on when they had all 4 branches of government in reagrds to accountability. they loosened up everything to help the tech sector. and it bit them in the ass. just go ask the few thousand ppl who lost their pensions. it is only one example though.

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Trickle down economics is an illusion...

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not when appllied to capitol improvements ben.

on a smaller, simpler scale, use a business example.

you and natalie own a plastics manufacturing business. you are capped as to produciton, and cannot increase it without exceeding the 40 hour work week. so, i solely in charge of the tax code, offer you the pre tax savings of say 4000, if you buy a 10,000 machine to increase productivuty. the machine generates say, 32,000 a year in comce, and requires an operator who gets paid 15. you now have more income, more capacity and another employee who is being paid on a decent scale. (all numbers scaled down for simplicty)

it does work.

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ok, but when I give tax cuts to the rich, there's less trickle down than is commonly argued...they are less likely to spend each additional dollar of tax saved than someone who is poor.

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again, you marginalize the idea that rich wont just pocket it. they will invest in anything from stocks which help companies grow via a cash influx, employing more people, or.... go with something like gov't bonds which put money into social prodjects.

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[quote=rubyraks;413052]ok, but when I give tax cuts to the rich, there's less trickle down than is commonly argued...they are less likely to spend each additional dollar of tax saved than someone who is poor.[/quote]

Please explain why tax revenues are at all-time highs today, when the top tax bracket has been reduced by 5%. Furthermore.... please explain why the wealthy are paying a higher % share of this record tax revenue than when rates were higher.

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[QUOTE=subterFUSE;413134]Please explain why tax revenues are at all-time highs today, when the top tax bracket has been reduced by 5%. Furthermore.... please explain why the wealthy are paying a higher % share of this record tax revenue than when rates were higher.[/QUOTE]

I don't have the figures at hand, but I have a feeling this is one of those feel-good statistics that sounds great but doesn't actually mean shit. It's like bragging that home ownership has increased -- when it increases every year by virtue of population growth.

Perhaps tax revenues are at an all-time high because there are more tax payers than there have been in the past? :NotMe:

I'd be curious to see if this stat -- for which no citation was provided, BTW -- holds up when dollars are adjusted for inflation, spread out per capita, etc.

Look, I'm at my most conservative when we're talking about taxes and matters of a fiscal nature, but it's not as easy as just looking at number X and number Y and saying one is bigger than the other. I'm not ready to start blowing the president because tax revenues happen to be high, nor do I think it means shit -- especially considering his out of control spending habits...

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[quote=toasty;413148]I don't have the figures at hand, but I have a feeling this is one of those feel-good statistics that sounds great but doesn't actually mean shit. It's like bragging that home ownership has increased -- when it increases every year by virtue of population growth.

..[/quote] ill answer it, and it is a feel good stat so to speak, and it does mean shit. most definetly. the US citizen, right now, is enjoying the highest personal income including the factor of adding in for inflation, vs the growth rate of the CPI index (a monster resource survey by product that tracks prices month by month for the last half century.)

to be honest, it is affecting canada too, so north america as a whole is doing fabulous in regards to the rates at which income grow and the rates at which costs go. country wise, not people wise, the US is in heavy debt but also owed heavy as well. o

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they both suck ass, what's the difference, he's just finishing what his daddy couldn't.