Debt is BAD!
2003-09-15 07:20:22
Who moved my party? True Republicans know debt can easily grow into a whirling economic black hole. It's just bad -- was, is, always will be.

Keeping tax rates high during expansion so that we can run a surplus and pay down the trillions of debt on the other hand is not a bad thing.

(Not to say that running up a little debt during a recession is never called for, and certainly a bit of sustainable borrowing for capital investment is acceptable. If you need some home improvement like, say, a security system, you borrow and pay it off over the life of the system. That's different than borrowing to pay your tab at O'Malley's.)


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If you want a conspiracy, ask the dead < RoughJustice > 09/12 20:50:37

Enron - Bodies

J. Clifford Baxter
Found dead in his car, shot in the head. Mr. Baxter was vice chairman of Enron Corp. when he resigned in May 2001. Enron has been hot copy lately with the revelation that they were the largest campaign contributors for George W. Bush. Was J. Clifford Baxter a potential witness to Bush foreknowledge of their wrongdoings? His death was ruled a suicide.

Charles Dana Rice
He was the senior vice president and treasurer of El Paso Corp., an energy corporation swept up in the recent energy scandal. Two months after the "suicide" of Enron executive Clifford Baxter, in the midst of questions about the accounting practices of El Paso Corp., Charles Rice was found dead of a gunshot wound to the head. His death was ruled a suicide.

James Daniel Watkins
His body was found on December 1, 2001 in the Pike National Forest in Colorado, a gunshot wound to the head. Mr. Watkins was a consultant for Arthur Andersen, the accounting firm for Enron. He disappeared on November 13 after he left work. He was described as a devoted family man who always called home if he were going to be late. Officials initially said that the death was suspicious, but have changed their tune and have ruled his death a suicide.

Jake Horton
He was the senior vice-president of Gulf Power, a subsidiary of Southern Company, a cohort of Enron in the energy industry, and a major contributer to the Bush agenda. According to reporter Gregory Palast, Horton knew of the company's appalling accounting practices, and "... had no doubt about its illegal campaign contributions to Florida politicans - he'd made the payments himself. In April of 1989 Horton decided to come clean with state officials, and reserved the company jet to go confront company officials. Ten minutes after takeoff the jet exploded.


http://forums.craigslist.org/?ID=8791308

Steve Kangas
His web site, Liberalism Resurgent, was meticulously researched and presented such a problem to the "real boss" of George Bush, Richard Scaife, that he hired a private detective to look into Kangas' past. Steve Kangas was found in a 39th-floor bathroom outside of Scaife's offices at One Oxford Centre, in Pittsburgh, an apparent suicide. Mr. Kangas, a very prolific writer, left no note. He had brought a fully-packed suitcase of clothes with him to Pittsburgh. He bought a burglar alarm shortly before he left for Pittsburgh. Why did he need a burglar alarm if he was going to commit suicide? An avowed advocate of gun control, he nevertheless bought a gun. What was he afraid of? Why did he go to Pittsburgh? After his death, his computer was sold for $150 and its hard drive wiped clean. Everything in his apartment was thrown away.

Danny Casolaro
He was working on a book that tied together the scandals surrounding the presidency of George H. W. Bush. He told his friends he was going to "bring back" the head of the Octopus. Instead, his body was found in a hotel in Martinsburg, West Virginia, on August 10, 1991, an apparent suicide.

Mark Lombardi
He was an accomplished conceptual artist who, while chatting on the phone with a banker friend about the Bush savings and loan scandal, started doodling a diagram and was inspired to create a complex series of drawings and sketches that charted the details of the scandal. According to the New York Times, "He was soon charting the complex matrices of personal and professional relationships, conflict of interest, malfeasance and fraud uncovered by investigations into the major financial and political scandals of the day; to keep facts and sources straight, he created a handwritten database that now includes around 12,000 3-by-5-inch cards."

On the evening of March 22, 2000, Mark Lombardi was found hanging in his loft, an apparent suicide.

James Hatfield
Mr. Hatfield was the author of Fortunate Son, an unauthorized biography of George W. Bush. The book detailed Bush's cocaine use and cover up of a cocaine arrest. He was found Wednesday, July 18, 2002 in a motel room, an apparent suicide.

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[sfo] Politics - World (context)
The paleocons are getting restless
2003-09-06 10:30:05
"Had there been any doubts about the direction the Republican Party is headed, they vanished last week when Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie visited New Hampshire.

During a cheerful and pleasant meeting (that’s the kind of guy Gillespie is) at The Union Leader offices, the party’s new chairman, energetic and full of vigor, said in no uncertain terms that the days of Reaganesque Republican railings against the expansion of federal government are over.

No longer does the Republican Party stand for shrinking the federal government, for scaling back its encroachment into the lives of Americans, or for carrying the banner of federalism into the political battles of the day.

No, today the Republican Party stands for giving the American people whatever the latest polls say they want. The people want the federal government to tell states how to run local schools? Then that’s what the Republican Party wants, too. The people want expanded entitlement programs and a federal government that attends to their every desire, no matter how frivolous? Then that’s what the Republican Party wants, too.

The party’s unofficial but clear message to conservatives is: Where else are you going to go? To the Democrats? To the Libertarians? They don’t think so. "

www.thesakeofargument.com/archives/000116.html


......................


"In three years, Bush has managed to wreak so much havoc with the nation's finances it's very hard to see who could do worse. In his first three years, you have an increase in domestic discretionary spending of 20.8 percent, compared to a decrease of 0.7 percent for Bill Clinton. If a Democrat had this record, do you think Republicans would let him off the hook? Here's Tom DeLay in 1995: "By the year 2002, we can have a federal government with a balanced budget or we can continue down the present path towards total fiscal catastrophe." If Clintonomics was a "fiscal catastrophe," what would an intellectually honest DeLay say about Bush? (I know an intellectually honest Tom DeLay is a bit of magical realism, but bear with me.) We don't just have big tax cuts; we have a big leap in discretionary spending, huge hikes in agricultural subsidies, no reform of corporate welfare, a huge new entitlement for prescription drugs, big jumps in the number of people employed indirectly by Uncle Sam, and on and on. Looking ahead, the future looks even worse - and that's even before we try and tackle the entitlement crunch of the boomer retirement. The GOP has to be punished for this. They run the Congress; and they're now officially worse than Democrats at keeping government solvent or small. Clinton was way, way better. Honest conservatives know this. Dishonest partisans look the other way."

www.andrewsullivan.com/index.php


the place is falling apart...
2003-09-06 10:53:47
Who's gonna pay for it?

"America's infrastructure is full of cracks, leaks and holes and is getting worse, according to an analysis by civil engineers that concludes the nation's transportation, water and energy systems have shown little improvement since they were given an overall grade of D-plus in 2001.



A report by the American Society of Civil Engineers released Thursday assessed trends over the last two years in the condition of 12 categories of infrastructure, including roadways, bridges, drinking water and energy.

...
There was no progress for schools, which received the worst grade — D-minus — from the engineers in 2001. The report said three out of four school buildings are inadequate. They estimate it will cost more than $127 billion to build new classrooms and modernize outdated schools.


Energy transmission earned a D-plus two years ago, and the engineers said the trend is getting worse. Investment in transmission fell by $115 million annually, to $2 billion a year in 2000 from $5 billion in 1975. Actual capacity increased by only 7,000 megawatts a year, 30 percent less than needed to keep up with power demand. "

story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030904/ap_on_re_us/aging_infrastructure_3

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hey we don't talk much but? < ibRightandLeft > 09/06 11:36:39

can you explina the debt rise with the so called "clinton budget surpluses?
www.treas.gov/education/fact-sheets/taxes/fed-debt.html