McCain leadin both Hillary and Obama in National poll

[GaryC 7]

Well lets not let some expert economists stop us from spinning Bush's economic policy as sound.

You guys just don't get it...it's the economy, stupid... buh-bye Republican WH...here comes the Democrats.

the nonprofit Economic Policy Institute (EPI) on Aug. 12 convened a group of top economists to discuss the Bush administration policies, which still are devastating working families nearly two years since the recession officially ended in November 2001. The EPI speakers were among 450 economists who signed a statement in February, which said that the then-proposed Bush tax cuts for millionaires would not stimulate much needed job growth but would create an ill-advised new tax structure.

The kind of “tight-lipped optimism” about jobs and the economy now voiced by Bush and his advisors is “distorting what is happening now and even more so in the future,” said Robert Solow, a 1987 Nobel Prize winner in economics and professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “The fiscal polices of this administration are systematically sacrificing the future of this nation.”

Tax Cuts for Millionaires No Solution to Nation’s Economic Woes

Rather than stimulating job growth, the Bush-backed millionaire tax cuts will help stimulate a massive federal budget shortfall—a 10-year deficit of nearly $6 trillion, according to George Akerlof, a 2001 Nobel Prize winner and economist at the University of California, Berkeley. “The popular discussion is there might be some question whether Bush’s economic policies are advisable,” he said. “But that’s wrong—they’re the worst in over 200 years.”

http://www.aflcio.org/aboutus/newsarchive/ns08132003.cfm

And yet another left wing think tank. Come on Steve, stop quoting left wing sources!!

Donors

According to New York Times reporter Matt Bai, the Economic Policy Institute is one of three think tanks that receive significant financial backing from the Democracy Alliance. The other two are Center for American Progress and Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.[1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_Policy_Institute

[Dan J 277]

Cut taxes without cutting spending = Deficit

Cut taxes and increase spending = Bigger Deficit

Keep goverment running = borrow money

Borrow money from other goverments = Decrease in value of dollar

Decrease in value of dollar = Cost more to buy imported products/commodities

More expensive oil = More expensive transportation and more money to fill up your tank

More epensive imports + more epensive transportation = Higher prices at stores

So in the end

Money gained from tax cuts - Money lost in more expensive economy = No gain (For most people anyway)

A smart investor already knows to earn his or her money in the US (lower taxes) and invest his or her money outside of the US (more potential for growth).

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Your must do better than this Steven. Quoting left wing think tanks gets you no more than me quoting Fox News.

Gary, I thought we got past this notion that anything with a bias can't be a reliable source or noteworthy? As long as there are factual references, I'll go for those sources. And for the record, I've posted stuff from the CATO Institute. Don't make me dig up what they've had to say about Bush's Economic Policies.

[GaryC 7]

Cut taxes without cutting spending = Deficit

Cut taxes and increase spending = Bigger Deficit

Keep goverment running = borrow money

Borrow money from other goverments = Decrease in value of dollar

Decrease in value of dollar = Cost more to buy imported products/commodities

More expensive oil = More expensive transportation and more money to fill up your tank

More epensive imports + more epensive transportation = Higher prices at stores

So in the end

Money gained from tax cuts - Money lost in more expensive economy = No gain (For most people anyway)

A smart investor already knows to earn his or her money in the US (lower taxes) and invest his or her money outside of the US (more potential for growth).

Not exactly true.

Cut taxes = better economy = more money made = more tax revenue

This has been proven time and time again. The economy isn't a zero sum gain, it's dynamic.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Doh! Where's Kaydee and his 'liberal-hating' drivel?

Columnist Bruce Bartlett delivers a lecture Tuesday at the Rockefeller Center.

Prominent conservative critiques Bush

Students, professors and community members gathered at the Rockefeller Center Tuesday afternoon to hear conservative economist and syndicated columnist Bruce Bartlett speak.

His lecture, entitled “Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy,” was based on Bartlett’s newly-published book which was released in February 2006 and led to his dismissal from the National Center for Policy Analysis, a conservative think tank.

Bartlett, who has been at the forefront of conservative economic thought since the Reagan years, helped draft the Kemp-Roth tax bill, which passed in 1981 and became one of the cornerstones of a supply-side economic policy.

He went on to work on the White House staff for President Reagan in 1987 until he moved to the Treasury Department during George H. W. Bush’s administration. He then relocated to Dallas to work for the National Center for Policy Analysis.

In his lecture, Bartlett touched on how he entered the political arena, his dissatisfaction with the Bush administration, what he characterizes as the administration’s unrealistic stance on the Medicare prescription bill and the extreme polarization of the political community.

Bartlett’s criticism of the current administration was based primarily on Bush’s economic policies.

“I was generally supportive of Bush,” Bartlett said, “until the passage of the Medicare prescription bill. We were running huge budget deficits and then we were going to increase spending by trillions of dollars? It didn’t make a lot of sense.”

Citing the Social Security Board of Trustees report released in April 2004, Bartlett noted that projected federal spending is $68 trillion for Medicare and $11 trillion for Social Security. Even though Bartlett is one of the founding thinkers of supply-side economic policy, he said that he recognizes that as the government increases spending on welfare programs, taxes will have to increase as well.

In addition to the spending crisis, Bartlett discussed the increasing polarization emerging not only between the Democratic and Republican parties but also how this polarization has crippled open discussion within his own party.

“Behind closed doors we can talk about these things openly, but in public, people write things and take positions that are extremely partisan. It is almost like Jekyll and Hyde,” he said.

When he publicly released a text critical of the current administration’s policies, Bartlett was fired from his job with the conservative National Center for Policy Analysis after having been involved in the conservative movement for 30 years.

In an interview with The Dartmouth, Bartlett emphasized the need for free political discourse both between and within parties.

“The general level of political dialogue seems to be an extreme polarization,” Bartlett said. “It is extremely difficult to have a conversation with someone who disagrees with you, whether they’re on your team or the other team.”

Bartlett also noted that this polarization leaves little space for change.

“There is a paralysis of policy development. People keep pushing the same old ideas, leaving no room for anything new,” he said.

Bartlett’s lecture was sponsored by the Rockefeller Center for Public Policy and Social Sciences.

http://thedartmouth.com/2006/05/17/news/prominent/

[GaryC 7]

Your must do better than this Steven. Quoting left wing think tanks gets you no more than me quoting Fox News.

Gary, I thought we got past this notion that anything with a bias can't be a reliable source or noteworthy? As long as there are factual references, I'll go for those sources. And for the record, I've posted stuff from the CATO Institute. Don't make me dig up what they've had to say about Bush's Economic Policies.

Don't bother, I will. Here is something from the CATO institute regarding the Bush tax cuts.

STATEMENT of

Stephen Moore

Senior Fellow

Cato Institute

On President Bush's Economic Growth Tax Cut

before the

Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation

United States House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services

March 18, 2003

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

President Bush's tax cut has the potential to substantially increase economic growth, boost the stock market, and increase business investment. The jewel of the President's tax plan is the elimination of the dividend tax on individuals. Another key economic growth provision of the tax plan is the acceleration of income tax rate reductions. My estimates are that the tax plan, if fully implemented, would increase stock values immediately by 5% to 15% and would reduce the cost of capital for businesses by 10% - 30%, depending on the industry.

Contrary to concerns that the Bush tax cut is "too big and too bold," I believe that the President's plan would be even more stimulative for economic growth if it were expanded to include several provisions. First, Congress should cut and consolidate income tax rates more than in the President's plan. The income tax rate should be consolidated down to 3 tax rates: 10%, 20%, and 30%. Second, tax free IRA savings accounts should be vastly expanded, in much the same manner as the White House has suggested. Super saver IRA accounts should be established with a cap of $20,000 per year per individual. The money in these funds should not be taxed until it is withdrawn for consumption purposes. Third, the capital gains tax should be lowered to 10% on all new investment.

The President's tax plan has many strengths, but one overriding virtue is this: it moves the federal tax system inexorably toward a single flat rate consumption tax system. Eliminating the double tax on dividends, abolishing the death tax, lowering income tax rates, and expanding tax free savings accounts are all big steps toward the promised land of a flat rate tax system that ends doubled taxation of saving and investment—the building blocks of a rapidly growing economy. Whatever modifications or additions to the Bush tax cut that Congress enacts should be consistent with the principles of a tax system that taxes all income at the same rate, once, and only once.

Myths About the President's Tax Plan

1. The Bush tax cut "benefits only the rich."

The media continues to report, as The New York Times has, that "90% of Americans…will get little or nothing from the dividend tax cut." Wrong. The Tax Foundation's recent examination of IRS tax return data finds just the opposite. Fully 34 million American tax filers reported some dividend income in 2000 and these returns represent 71 million people. That is a whole lot more than 10% of the population who will directly benefit.

The income tax cuts are even more widely distributed. Anyone who pays income taxes and dreads the coming of April 15th will get an income tax cut under the Bush plan. The typical working family with 2 incomes and an income of $60,000—and I suspect very few of these households regard themselves as "rich"—would get a $1,200 a year tax cut from the Bush plan. If the income is $40,000 the family gets a $600 tax cut —and not just for one year, as under the Democratic alternative plan, but forever.

Proportionately, the rich get a smaller share of the Bush tax cut pie, not a bigger slice than the middle class. For example, the Treasury Department reports that for Americans who make more than $100,000 a year, the share of all federal income taxes paid would rise from 72% to 73%. For those who make less than a six-figure income a year, their overall share of the tax load goes down.

2. The Bush tax cut will blow a hole in the deficit.

The Bush tax cut provides $670 billion in tax relief for Americans over the next 10 years. This will hardly bankrupt the federal treasury. Over the next ten years the IRS will collect some $25 trillion in taxes from Americans. So the tax cut comes to less than 3 cents on the dollar, hardly a massive giveaway.

Nor is it accurate to say that the national debt will rise by the amount of the tax cut, unless one believes that tax cuts result in absolutely zero change in economic behavior. The truth is that for every action in the economy, as in physics, there is a reaction. If we cut income tax rates and eliminate the double tax on dividends, surely workers, and businesses, and investors will behave differently. If the tax on work and hiring goes down, surely we will get more of both. If the tax on investment goes down and the after-tax rate of return goes up, surely we will get more of that too. If the tax on dividends is eliminated and the capital gains tax falls as well, surely we will get more business investment and higher stock values.

Opponents of the tax cut continue to tout the results of economic models that have a perfect batting record of being wrong in predicting the future. For example, in 1997, when the capital gains tax rate was cut from 28% to 20%, the crystal ball gazers inside and outside government predicted a multi-billion dollar "cost" to the Treasury. In fact, the capital gains receipts doubled in 4 years. These are precisely the same defective models that are now telling us the Bush tax cut will lead the nation into bankruptcy.

Bill Beach, the economist and forecaster at the Heritage Foundation, reports that the dividend tax cut alone is such potent medication for the economy that the Treasury Department should recapture about 50 to 70% of the supposed tax revenue loss from the tax cut. Beach finds that the real world cost to the government of the Bush tax cut is probably at most half the reported "cost." I'd put my money on Beach's estimates, which have a far more accurate track record of accuracy.

But let us assume the worst-case scenario: no economic response from the Bush tax cut whatsoever. We could still have the Bush tax cuts and a balanced budget. If Congress were to modestly control its appetite for new spending, the tax plan could be implemented fully and the budget returned to balance by 2006. In a study for the Cato Institute I found that if overall federal spending were restrained to 2% annual growth over the next four years (which shouldn't be too difficult in this era of almost no inflation), the federal government would start running surpluses by 2006 even if we assume that the Bush tax cut incited no economic feedback and we include the costs of the war. If the tax cuts do generate growth, the budget would be balanced by 2006 or sooner.

Another reason to suspect that the Bush tax cut will not run up the deficit is that if the taxes aren't cut, it is much more likely that Congress will spend the money than save it. In other words, taxes cause spending, and the lack of taxes impose at least some spending discipline. Ohio University economist Richard Vedder has documented this relationship between tax revenues and spending and has found that each additional dollar of taxes available for Congress to spend leads to nearly a dollar of added spending. Nobel prize winner Milton Friedman notes that one of the strongest arguments for the Bush tax cut is that it will discourage a stampede of congressional spending over the next several years.

3. The Bush tax cut won't stimulate economic growth or jobs.

All we can really rely upon to judge the economic value of tax rate reductions is the economic reaction to tax cuts in the past. Fortunately, Bush has history firmly on his side. The 1964 Kennedy income tax rate reductions spurred a bull market expansion and budgets in near balance through the 1960s. The 1981 Reagan tax cuts ushered in 7 consecutive years of prosperity and 15 million new jobs. The 1997 capital gains cut corresponded with a bull market rally in the stock market and a surge of investment spending and venture capital funding for new businesses.

The critics argue that the 2001 Bush tax cut has failed to provide any juice for the economy. But there's a good reason for that. Seventy percent of the tax cuts haven't taken effect yet. All the more compelling reason to speed up the tax cuts so they can provide immediate economic aid. Especially critical is to chop the highest and most economically punitive tax rates. Roughly two-of-every-three Americans who pay the top income tax rate are business owners or sole proprietors. If you want jobs, you need financially healthy and confident employers with dollars to invest.

The dividend tax cut will have the same salutary effect on larger businesses. For example, John Rutledge, a respected Wall Street economist, has estimated that ending the double tax on dividends increases stock values by roughly 10% or an $800 billion increase in wealth, reduces businesses cost of raising investment capital by 25%, and helps stimulate a recovery in the battered high technology and telecom industries most. Many stock analysts, including economist John Rutledge of Kudlow and Co., believe that passing the dividend tax exemption and the acceleration of income tax rate reductions could add another 5 - 10% or so to equity values. That's the equivalent of a $500 billion to $1 trillion instant boost in wealth.

Clearly, even Americans who do own stocks that do not pay dividends or who own stocks in tax free 401k plans or IRAs will benefit from the dividend tax cut because of the increase in the valuation of stocks.

The Case for Growing the Bush Tax Cut

To maximize the positive job and wealth-creating impact of the Bush tax plan, it should not be shrunk, as some in the House suggest, it should be expanded to perhaps twice the size that the White House has recommended. I am pleased that Rep.s Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania have teamed up to craft such a plan.

President Bush's plan will incentivize supply side growth by eliminating the dividend tax elimination and speeding up income tax rate cuts. But it omits tax policy changes that would improve the tax code, help the economy immediately, and cost the Treasury little or nothing in terms of lost revenues. This strategy would lift the tax drag that is still impeding growth and hasten the economy's recovery to the 4% to 5% real GDP growth that the United States is uniquely capable of achieving. It is worth reminding the members of the Committee that even in the first year of the plan, the tax cut amounts to less than 1% of the entire GDP. The Reagan tax cuts of 1981 and the John F. Kennedy tax cuts of 1964 were about 3 to 4 times larger in size than what President Bush has proposed.

Growth is the key to balancing the budget. A balanced budget will require at least a 3% to 4% economic growth rate to generate the revenues to pay for expected federal spending over the next decade. Every 1 percentage point increase in sustained economic growth generates an extra $1 trillion of tax receipts over ten years. The best way to produce tax receipts is to put people back to work; to get the stock market growing again; and to return American businesses to robust profitability. Tax cuts aren't then only way to make higher growth achievable, but history repeatedly shows they can sure help.

As such, here are the additions to the Bush tax plan that are worth consideration:

1) Consolidate the income tax rates down to three: 10, 20, and 30. Getting the top tax rate down to 35% is good, but 30% would be even better. For those who argue that this would lower the top tax rate too much, we would remind critics that in the late 1990s Reagan got the top tax rate down to 28%. Lowering the top income tax rate back down to 30% would help attract trillions of dollars of foreign investment capital back to the U.S. and would help reverse the decline in the dollar. Also, because 2 of every 3 taxpayers in the highest tax bracket today is a sole proprietor of a small business, lower tax rates will mean more business expansion and more jobs.

2) Cut the capital gains tax to 10% on all new investment. The last capital gains tax cit in 1997 increased stock values, increased business investment and venture capital funding, and helped spur a huge stock market rally. That has been the economic reaction to virtually every capital gains tax cut over the past 40 years. The capital gains tax cut is the goose that lays the golden eggs. Keep cutting until we eventually get down to zero.

3) Expand tax free IRAs and 401k super-saver accounts. This will help create larger individual pools of household savings and wealth accumulation. The latest Fed report shows that 52% of households now own stock and that this mass democratization of the U.S stock market has caused impressive increases in average household wealth in the U.S. - from $50,000 on average in the mid 1980s to almost $75,000 today (adjusted for inflation). IRAs and 401ks help build financial self-sufficiency and less reliance on the government programs. Moreover, we should stop double-taxing Americans' savings. IRAs and 401k's should be dramatically liberalized by raising limits by $5,000 per year. The goal should be to eventually create unlimited supersaver IRAs, where any money that is saved out of income is not taxed, until the funds are taken out of the savings account to be spent. The income limits for IRAs should be repealed too.

One last, but crucial point. Republicans need to adopt dynamic, real-world scoring of tax policy changes. Stop using a tax referee that is biased against the President's program and that consistently produces discredited predictions of the future. For 30 years economic models in Washington have over-estimate the revenue gains from tax hikes, and overstated the tax losses from tax rate cuts.

President Bush deserves great credit for proposing a tax plan that has the potential to increase economic growth and create jobs. The economy needs a jolt of tax cut adrenaline given the recent discouraging financial numbers that have been released. The fact that we are on the eve of war, is an argument for revving up our economic engine of industrial might, not hindering its productive capacity with a dysfunctional tax system.

http://www.cato.org/testimony/ct-sm03182003.html

[Dan J 277]

Cut taxes without cutting spending = Deficit

Cut taxes and increase spending = Bigger Deficit

Keep goverment running = borrow money

Borrow money from other goverments = Decrease in value of dollar

Decrease in value of dollar = Cost more to buy imported products/commodities

More expensive oil = More expensive transportation and more money to fill up your tank

More epensive imports + more epensive transportation = Higher prices at stores

So in the end

Money gained from tax cuts - Money lost in more expensive economy = No gain (For most people anyway)

A smart investor already knows to earn his or her money in the US (lower taxes) and invest his or her money outside of the US (more potential for growth).

Not exactly true.

Cut taxes = better economy = more money made = more tax revenue

This has been proven time and time again. The economy isn't a zero sum gain, it's dynamic.

The revenue wasn't enough, we still have a deficit. Its cutting taxing with a resulting deficit that has caused most of the problems, since we make up our deficit by borrowing.

Lets say you spend more than you make every month. You make up the extra with credit card debt. If you don't change your income or spending, what is your long term financial outlook?

[GaryC 7]

Doh! Where's Kaydee and his 'liberal-hating' drivel?

Columnist Bruce Bartlett delivers a lecture Tuesday at the Rockefeller Center.

Prominent conservative critiques Bush

Students, professors and community members gathered at the Rockefeller Center Tuesday afternoon to hear conservative economist and syndicated columnist Bruce Bartlett speak.

His lecture, entitled “Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy,” was based on Bartlett’s newly-published book which was released in February 2006 and led to his dismissal from the National Center for Policy Analysis, a conservative think tank.

Bartlett, who has been at the forefront of conservative economic thought since the Reagan years, helped draft the Kemp-Roth tax bill, which passed in 1981 and became one of the cornerstones of a supply-side economic policy.

He went on to work on the White House staff for President Reagan in 1987 until he moved to the Treasury Department during George H. W. Bush’s administration. He then relocated to Dallas to work for the National Center for Policy Analysis.

In his lecture, Bartlett touched on how he entered the political arena, his dissatisfaction with the Bush administration, what he characterizes as the administration’s unrealistic stance on the Medicare prescription bill and the extreme polarization of the political community.

Bartlett’s criticism of the current administration was based primarily on Bush’s economic policies.

“I was generally supportive of Bush,” Bartlett said, “until the passage of the Medicare prescription bill. We were running huge budget deficits and then we were going to increase spending by trillions of dollars? It didn’t make a lot of sense.”

Citing the Social Security Board of Trustees report released in April 2004, Bartlett noted that projected federal spending is $68 trillion for Medicare and $11 trillion for Social Security. Even though Bartlett is one of the founding thinkers of supply-side economic policy, he said that he recognizes that as the government increases spending on welfare programs, taxes will have to increase as well.

In addition to the spending crisis, Bartlett discussed the increasing polarization emerging not only between the Democratic and Republican parties but also how this polarization has crippled open discussion within his own party.

“Behind closed doors we can talk about these things openly, but in public, people write things and take positions that are extremely partisan. It is almost like Jekyll and Hyde,” he said.

When he publicly released a text critical of the current administration’s policies, Bartlett was fired from his job with the conservative National Center for Policy Analysis after having been involved in the conservative movement for 30 years.

In an interview with The Dartmouth, Bartlett emphasized the need for free political discourse both between and within parties.

“The general level of political dialogue seems to be an extreme polarization,” Bartlett said. “It is extremely difficult to have a conversation with someone who disagrees with you, whether they’re on your team or the other team.”

Bartlett also noted that this polarization leaves little space for change.

“There is a paralysis of policy development. People keep pushing the same old ideas, leaving no room for anything new,” he said.

Bartlett’s lecture was sponsored by the Rockefeller Center for Public Policy and Social Sciences.

http://thedartmouth.com/2006/05/17/news/prominent/

Do you read what you post? He is mad because Bush started a prescription benefit that the dems wanted! He complained that it is wrecking the economy! What will happen if the dems get their way and turn the whole health care industry over to the government! You just made a case against your side!!

[GaryC 7]

Cut taxes without cutting spending = Deficit

Cut taxes and increase spending = Bigger Deficit

Keep goverment running = borrow money

Borrow money from other goverments = Decrease in value of dollar

Decrease in value of dollar = Cost more to buy imported products/commodities

More expensive oil = More expensive transportation and more money to fill up your tank

More epensive imports + more epensive transportation = Higher prices at stores

So in the end

Money gained from tax cuts - Money lost in more expensive economy = No gain (For most people anyway)

A smart investor already knows to earn his or her money in the US (lower taxes) and invest his or her money outside of the US (more potential for growth).

Not exactly true.

Cut taxes = better economy = more money made = more tax revenue

This has been proven time and time again. The economy isn't a zero sum gain, it's dynamic.

The revenue wasn't enough, we still have a deficit. Its cutting taxing with a resulting deficit that has caused most of the problems, since we make up our deficit by borrowing.

Lets say you spend more than you make every month. You make up the extra with credit card debt. If you don't change your income or spending, what is your long term financial outlook?

I am all for cutting all government programs with the exception of the national defense. But to follow your logic, If you increase taxes you slow the economy. The base that you get your taxes from shrinks. Revenues go down, everyone loses.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Do you read what you post? He is mad because Bush started a prescription benefit that the dems wanted! He complained that it is wrecking the economy! What will happen if the dems get their way and turn the whole health care industry over to the government! You just made a case against your side!!

Gary, Bush's economic policy is a catastrophic failure, but I'm sure no amount of expert economist's saying so or even conservative ones because you'll believe what you want....and that doesn't matter. What matters is the 75 % of Americans who have sobered up to that reality. Say buy-bye to the White House.

[mawilson 2,133]

We *can* re-legislate it to reward the middle class while making sure the upper crusts pay their fair share.

Maybe. That would be better than repealing the Bush tax cuts.

[GaryC 7]

Do you read what you post? He is mad because Bush started a prescription benefit that the dems wanted! He complained that it is wrecking the economy! What will happen if the dems get their way and turn the whole health care industry over to the government! You just made a case against your side!!

Gary, Bush's economic policy is a catastrophic failure, but I'm sure no amount of expert economist's saying so or even conservative ones because you'll believe what you want....and that doesn't matter. What matters is the 75 % of Americans who have sobered up to that reality. Say buy-bye to the White House.

No it hasn't. The last 5 years have been great! I don't know what planet you live on but it isn't earth. My income has gone way up. My job security is great. I couldn't be happier. Sure we are in a downturn right now but I don't think it is as bad as everyone is making it out. Unemployment is still low, interest rates are low, inflation is low. None of the things that is going on with the housing market or the stock market have anything to do with Bush's tax cuts. You just like scapegoating. I don't buy it.

[HAL 9000 96]

Two issues will determine the outcome of this election - the war in Iraq and the economy, therefore whoever is the Democratic candidate will be our next president. History says so.

You can say Clinton was elected because of a bad economy, but what other Democrat was elected because of that?

Carter?- Nope, people were pissed about Nixon.

During Carter's administration, the economy suffered double-digit inflation, coupled with very high interest rates, oil shortages, high unemployment and slow economic growth. Productivity growth in the United States had declined to an average annual rate of 1 percent, compared to 3.2 percent of the 1960s. [33] The prime rate hit 21.5% in December 1980, the highest rate in U.S. history under any President.[34] Investments in fixed income (both bonds and pensions being paid to retired people) were becoming less valuable. The high interest rates would lead to a sharp recession in the early 1980s.

Carter=Bad economy=Reagan Election. Reagan was a Republican I think

Johnson?-Nope, he took over because people loved Kennedy.

Kennedy?-I don't so. The economy was not in that bad of shape in the early 60s. In fact, the odd thing is that Eisenhower expanded social programs and Kennedy cut taxes. Kennedy was elected more because he offered a nice fresh face with social changes as opposed to the grumpy face of Nixon.

Were not going back to the depression for comparison are we?

Reagan's election in 1980 and then Clinton's in 1992, both of whom were elected because the American people had lost faith in the incumbent president - that's what I'm talking about. In other words, look back at all the President's with low approval ratings and tell me how many times the incumbent Party won anyway?

2004?

2004=Patriotism=Fear of 9-11.

I think it would be interesting to look at what candidate ever won an election based on promises to raise taxes. Has that ever happened?

Who is promising to raise everyone's taxes?

Clinton and Obama are both saying they will let Bush's tax cuts expire. That is raising taxes.

It means a very small percentage of the American population would be paying more...not the majority.

...and they both are cutting the taxes of Middle and Lower Class Americans...that's lowering taxes, not raising.

Big difference...huge difference.

Exactly. Top 1% of earners. Not anyone on VJ, is it?

[GaryC 7]

Two issues will determine the outcome of this election - the war in Iraq and the economy, therefore whoever is the Democratic candidate will be our next president. History says so.

You can say Clinton was elected because of a bad economy, but what other Democrat was elected because of that?

Carter?- Nope, people were pissed about Nixon.

During Carter's administration, the economy suffered double-digit inflation, coupled with very high interest rates, oil shortages, high unemployment and slow economic growth. Productivity growth in the United States had declined to an average annual rate of 1 percent, compared to 3.2 percent of the 1960s. [33] The prime rate hit 21.5% in December 1980, the highest rate in U.S. history under any President.[34] Investments in fixed income (both bonds and pensions being paid to retired people) were becoming less valuable. The high interest rates would lead to a sharp recession in the early 1980s.

Carter=Bad economy=Reagan Election. Reagan was a Republican I think

Johnson?-Nope, he took over because people loved Kennedy.

Kennedy?-I don't so. The economy was not in that bad of shape in the early 60s. In fact, the odd thing is that Eisenhower expanded social programs and Kennedy cut taxes. Kennedy was elected more because he offered a nice fresh face with social changes as opposed to the grumpy face of Nixon.

Were not going back to the depression for comparison are we?

Reagan's election in 1980 and then Clinton's in 1992, both of whom were elected because the American people had lost faith in the incumbent president - that's what I'm talking about. In other words, look back at all the President's with low approval ratings and tell me how many times the incumbent Party won anyway?

2004?

2004=Patriotism=Fear of 9-11.

What is wrong with patriotism? And are we no longer under threat?

[dalegg 143]

Lets say you spend more than you make every month. You make up the extra with credit card debt. If you don't change your income or spending, what is your long term financial outlook?

I believe it was Divorce.