Americans choose Democrats

[mawilson 2,133]

The national debt only makes sense when expressed as a percentage of GDP.

If you owe $10,000, is it a lot of money? Sure - for someone who makes $1,000 / month,

but it's peanuts for someone who makes $100,000 / month.

...from the source I posted.

Sure - it went from 57.4% in 2001 to 67.5% in 2006% - a 10% increase.

While you can't call it insignificant, it's not as dramatic as you make it out to be.

After all, in 1995 the number was 67.2% - only slightly lower than it is today.

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

Why would Carter have made a career as a Naval Officer if he didn't think the military was important? Again, you're arguing semantics. My reply was to your claim that the Dems want to tax and spend, so I gave you historical facts that it's actually the neocons who are not fiscally conservative and then you used the excuse that it's because Reagan spent more money on the military.

So, essentially you've said the Republicans spend less, except with military they spend more and will do it even if it increases our national debt?

Somewhere I've lost you with the term conservative...

we've had that discussion before, about carter being a "career naval officer"

Upon the death of his father in 1953, however, Carter resigned from the Navy and took over and expanded his family's peanut farming business in Plains. link

at least in the military, a career is one who is in at least 20 years and retires.........

he was not..........so enjoy your semantics cereal

so you're denying that dems tax and spend? or is that not an issue as it's on social programs instead of the military? are you going to tell me that the underfunding of carter and lack of foresight on his part in regards to the soviet threat, which reagan saw and embarked on a long term spending program to catch up, something that carter should have done instead?

What's interesting is that you have neocon Bush and his rebuilding of Iraq - talking about the importance of supporting an infrastructure for upholding a democracy, but then when Democrats say they want to focus on supporting our infrastructure here (education, healthcare, jobs), it's regarded as social engineering (in a negative context).

But really, you keep steering clear of the argument you've made - that Republicans are more conservative when it comes to money and that is an old joke that's run it's course.

Political Labels No Longer Accurate

There has been an interesting transition taking place in the nation’s political parties over the last 20 years. Back when Mr. Reagan was elected the first time the majority of Republican’s believed in responsible spending. Controlling government spending was one of the major grass roots objectives that Reagan touted in his many campaign speeches. The Democrats wrongly defended deficit spending at the time. Once Reagan got into office he kept talking about needing a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. Yet all the while he was giving lip service to the idea of smaller government, behind our backs he was making it larger. He gave tax cuts to the rich and astronomically increased the debt. He obfuscated the issue so well that here we are 23 years later and it seems the only party that got the message was the Democrats, both at the grass roots level and at the national level. Most of the folks talking about responsible government spending these days are Democrats, and the Republicans are curiously silent on the issue of debt reduction (and term limits). Where have all the Republican deficit hawks gone?

[sparkofcreation 0]

The only thing that gives me hope is the increase from 1 to 2 Independents in the Senate, because I hope it's the start of a movement towards either reforming the existing parties or forming a third one.

who are/where are the independents? I don't see any for the senate lost or gained.

You're following CNN I assume. They finally added a disclaimer today after I (and probably half the world) complained saying that they're counting the Independents with the Democrats (because the number of Independents contributes to the number for a Democratic majority).

The Independents are Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Sanders is replacing Jim Jeffords, who was previously the only Independent (and before that was a Republican).

Edited November 10, 2006 by sparkofcreation