On the Bush speech
Good speech for people who want the government to give them stuff. Dubya is leading the Republican party to rival the Democrat party in terms of growing the leviathan. Grants, home loans, pooling insurance, job training, healthcare, gimme, gimme, gimme, etc. There is now no party of small government (well, excluding third parties).
On a positive, he wants to simplify the tax code. Even though I’m an accountant, I’m all for it. He didn’t say anything about dissolving the IRS so don’t get your hopes up. When the government says simplify, it usually means make more confusing.
Update: Oh yeah. How could I forget fighting terror? Another positive as far as I’m concerned.
September 3rd, 2004 at 12:44 pm
Dubya is leading the Republican party to rival the Democrat party in terms of growing the leviathan.
When will this fiction be put to rest? The reality is that historically the Dems have always grown government less than the Republicans (amongst a host of other economic benefits under Democrats(..and both parties love to spend money. It’s just the Republicans who don’t like to fund that spending.
Republicans have to realize that you can’t have small government, with a big military, a big prison system, and big farm subsidies (or for that matter big pharma benefit plans for medicare).
Hey, quite frankly I’m a fiscal conservative. I listen to NPR, but don’t think that the government should be funding it. I’ve supported the Republicans in the past, particularly when they were pushing the Balanced Budget Amendment, but the reality is that Dems grow the government less than the Republicans.
September 3rd, 2004 at 12:51 pm
Manish:
It barely does. Less than 2% of NPR’s budget comes from federal funds, and that’s not direct. That <2% comes from grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which are not guaranteed to NPR in any way. They have to apply for them yearly. Over 98% of NPR’s funding comes from member stations, private trusts, and NPR membership dues.
Uncle:
When the GOP says it, it means “shift more of the tax burden to the middle class.”
Good. Maybe Bush will pick that back up again, now that the Iraq distraction is over and the country is “sovereign.”
I’m not holding my breath.
September 3rd, 2004 at 12:56 pm
Please post something that substantiates your claim that Bush “put down” fighting terror. I want to see that, or a retraction of your intentionally inflammatory comment.
I’m not holding my breath.
September 3rd, 2004 at 2:28 pm
tgirsch..IIRC, NPR actually gets 12% of their budget from the feds, but the percentage is irrelevant. IMHO, CPB should only fund programming for children since its less viable to do this via advertising. There is simply no good reason to subsidize programming for adults..especially when you consider that NPR does run mentions for corporations who donate money.
September 3rd, 2004 at 2:32 pm
Thib..it comes down to believing what you want to believe. I’ve asked this before and I’ll ask again..what is your criteria for countries that we should pre-emptively invade and secondly, how is Iraq at the top of this list? Under most of the popular reasons to go to war, many countries are better candidates for pre-emptive invasion such as Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, North Korea, etc.
September 3rd, 2004 at 2:48 pm
Following Joan Kroc’s bequeathment of $200 million, NPR should be set for life.
September 3rd, 2004 at 3:16 pm
Way to argue with something I didn’t even say, Manish. TGirsch implied that Bush STOPPED fighting terror to invade Iraq—at least, that’s what I assume he meant by “pick back up.”
I want some support for that.
September 3rd, 2004 at 5:36 pm
well Thib, let’s just assume that tgirsch would respond with something like “Iraq had nothing to do with the war on terror” and you would respond “yes it did”, my question would then follow. Let’s assume that pre-emptive invasion is a sound strategy..well why Iraq and not some other country? I mean does it really make sense to bring democracy to Iraq and support a regime in Pakistan that overthrew a democratically-elected government? (You didn’t say this, but this is what Bush is doing).
September 3rd, 2004 at 6:01 pm
Are you even reading what I write? Forget Iraq; I didn’t say anything about Iraq. HOW AND WHEN did Bush “put down” fighting terrorism such that he needs to “pick it back up?”
Again, you’re arguing with something I didn’t even mention. Do YOU think Bush needs to “pick back up” the fight against terrorism?
September 3rd, 2004 at 6:16 pm
Thib..if you read tgirsch’s entire original statement it says Good. Maybe Bush will pick that back up again, now that the Iraq distraction is over and the country is “sovereign.”
From this and my post it should be quite obvious that Bush “put down” fighting terror when he got us into the “Iraq distraction”.
If you again look at my last post, you’ll note that I summarized what tgirsch meant and your likely reply (yes, this was putting words in your mouth, but I think it was an accurate summary..feel free to disagree), to which I added my own question. Specifically, lets assume that losing focus in Afghanistan and focusing on another country was really the right thing to do. Why Iraq? I truly am curious to know why you think Iraq was the right decision as opposed to say any other country in the Middle East or North Korea, even if its considered off-topic.
September 3rd, 2004 at 10:15 pm
Manish, I’m not really interested in having this argument with you. You ARE putting words in my mouth, and you’re dodging the question:
HOW and WHEN did Bush stop fighting terrorism? I want specific examples—facts—not partisan bitching about Iraq. If you want to continue to look at Iraq as a distraction, I want to know who it has distracted, and from what tasks.
If you don’t want to answer that, fine; I didn’t really ask you, but you decided to jump in. If you want to carry on the conversation, answer my question, and stop trying to dodge it by asking me who I think we ought to invade and why.
September 7th, 2004 at 1:19 am
Thib..are you paying attention at all? Bush invaded Iraq, and took the focus out of Afghanistan. There are fewer troops in Afghanistan than there are police officers in New York City. We only have control over the area around Kabul. We let Osama bin Laden get away. This is a well documented argument and counter-argument that has played out its course in the blogosphere and the mainstream media as well. There are numerous posts both at SayUncle and on Leanleft amongst other sources.
Having said all that, and I realize that this is a bit of a tangent, but I truly would like to know..given the stated reasons for attacking Iraq, was Iraq really the best country to invade? You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, but I am curious as to what you’re response is.
September 7th, 2004 at 5:22 pm
I don’t read LeanLeft, and you still haven’t answered the question: WHO was distracted, and from what. Saying “Bush took the the focus out of Afghanistan” isn’t enough. Also, since you’re throwing out all these assertions, can you PROVE we let UBL “get away” because of Iraq? Can you PROVE that the number of troops we have is sub-optimal, and that it’s because of Iraq?
When I ask for some supporting evidence for an argument, don’t tell me I’m not paying attention. If there’s posts somewhere, link them, by God. I’ve seen tgirsch make assertions about how we don’t have enough troops in Afghanistan, but I didn’t see him present any qualifications for being an authority on how many we should have. Hell, he didn’t even SAY how many we should have; it’s just that we don’t have enough.
Oh, and how do we know there’s not enough? Well, because Osama got away! In other words, if a goal hasn’t been accomplished yet, it’s because BUSH DIDN’T TRY HARD ENOUGH.
Franly, Manish, I’ve had you ranked a little bit above Girsch, because you usually don’t spout this party-line stuff. I actually kind of like you. Please don’t spoil it.
September 9th, 2004 at 2:17 am
Thib..I have to admit that I wasn’t sure how to take your comments. I figured that you were either looking to debate the merits of the “losing-focus” argument, but was acting stupid on the actual particulars of the argument or that you genuinely weren’t familiar with the argument.
Now, there is nothing wrong with wanting to debate something, I simply take exception to people acting stupid to draw out an argument. As I see it, if you want to start a debate, then start a debate. There is also nothing wrong with not being familiar with a particular point of view, I just find it difficult to believe that someone who writes in a blog and keeps up on things such as yourself has never been fully exposed to it. Its been on many websites, blogs, and old media.
I don’t have time to google up some articles right now, but I’ll make you a deal..I’ll google them up over the next couple of days, if you’d be willing to answer the question that I’ve been posing.
Anyway to quickly answer some of your questions:
you still haven’t answered the question: WHO was distracted, and from what
This is what I mean by acting stupid. It should be rather obvious that I mean that the Administration focused on Iraq rather than Afghanistan.
Oh, and how do we know there’s not enough? Well, because Osama got away! In other words, if a goal hasn’t been accomplished yet, it’s because BUSH DIDN’T TRY HARD ENOUGH.
We have 10,000 or so troops in Afghanistan and over 100,000 in Iraq. We are also at such a critical shortage of troops that reservists are being asked to prolong and tours and people who thought that their commitments were over are finding out that they are not.
Would it be a stretch to say that if we had 25,000 or 50,000 or 100,000 troops in Afghanistan rathern than Iraq that our probability of finding Osama bin Laden would increase? After all, even Bush said that Saddam wasn’t an “imminent threat”, just that “we had to stop him before he became an imminent threat”. Thus, even taking the view that going into Iraq was the right thing to do, could we not have finished the job in Afghanistan before committing to Iraq? Heck, if we had done that we could’ve waited until there was enough body armor for all of our troops.