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If you were an employer reviewing Obama’s resume for the job he is seeking, would you hire him?
R.M. SHERMAN
Grand Junction
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99 Responses to “Would you hire him?”
Posted August 25th, 2008 at 4:57 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
No.
Posted August 25th, 2008 at 4:59 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
Well, maybe.
Naw, I’d go ahead and call Goodwins.
Posted August 25th, 2008 at 5:04 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
Well, he has about the same credentials as Abraham Lincoln did when applying for the same job, except that Obama is much better educated. so would I hire him? In about a microsecond!
Posted August 25th, 2008 at 5:10 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
differing times, class…i wouldn’t hire him if he were subsidized…besides, lincolm had experience, which ‘bammer lacks
Posted August 25th, 2008 at 5:20 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
When I see Obama standing next to Biden it is hard not to think that the roles should be reversed. In 4 or 8 years Obama would be a much more seasoned and experienced candidate. I believe that if, in fact, the roles were reversed, the presidential polls today would be much more in favor of the Democrats. Now, it’s a toss up.
Posted August 25th, 2008 at 6:47 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
Would I hire a Harvard graduate over a Naval Academy graduate who finished 8th from the bottom in a class of several hundred? In a microsecond! Brains count! I would have thought you guys would have had enough of presidents with, at best, average intelligence. McCain gives us about the same as G. Bush both in terms of brain power and policy, which is to say : disastrous!
Posted August 25th, 2008 at 8:17 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
I would hire him in a Chicago minute!
Posted August 25th, 2008 at 8:32 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
Well, lets talk about brains.
Obama doesn’t know how many states make up the United states: “It is wonderful to be back in Oregon,” Obama said. “Over the last 15 months, we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in 57 states? I think one left to go. Alaska and Hawaii, I was not allowed to go to even though I really wanted to visit, but my staff would not justify it.” He later said to reporters, “I understand I said there were 57 states today. It’s a sign that my numeracy is getting a little, uh.” At that point, an aide cut him off and ushered journalists out. Even his own people shut him down before he could mis-speak again. (damn, where’s that teleprompter when you need it?)
He thinks China’s infrastructure is great. Does he forget why and how the infrastructure came about, what the Chinese government has done to their people to get to that point?
Introduces Biden as “the next president,(oops) uh next vice president.”
BTW, Biden graduated 76 out of 85 at Syracuse College of Law. Percentage wise, no better than McCain.
I still say main reason not to vote for Obama, is lack of experience, not because he can’t speak without help. Well, the speaking part still could pose a problem for him though.
Posted August 25th, 2008 at 9:20 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
Tasha53: “BTW, Biden graduated 76 out of 85 at Syracuse College of Law. Percentage wise, no better than McCain.”
This is known as Republican mathematics and what we can expect if McCain were to become President. You might want to get out your handy dandy little calculator and refigure that one Tasha53.
Posted August 25th, 2008 at 9:23 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
tasha53,
You are grasping at straws. By the way did you watch Michelle Obamas speech tonight and the response of his children. Very encouraging that we may have real people involved in this campaign for the presidency.
Posted August 25th, 2008 at 9:28 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
People with family values. Mrs. Obama grew up in a poor working class neighborhood on the south side of Chicago but went to Harvard Law school and has dedicated her life in service to others. Mr’s McCain’s accomplishments? Well she seems to need 7 homes to be happy.
Posted August 25th, 2008 at 10:01 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
Actually I got McCain’s graduation rank wrong. It was 894th out of 899.
that puts him in the bottom 0.7% of the class.
Biden at 76th out of 85 graduated in the bottom 12% of his class.
BIG, BIG difference!!
Posted August 25th, 2008 at 10:06 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
Class,
I do not need to get out my little calculator. McCain graduated 894 out of 899. Biden graduated 76 out of 85. They were both at the bottom of their graduation class. If one had been at the top and one at the bottom, then there would be a big difference in percentage.
Lets see, there are a lot of very rich people who have more than one home, and many of them have more than 7. Big, (you know what) deal!! Are you jealous?
rm,
I am not grasping at straws, just stating facts.
And yes I watched the DMC program tonight. Nothing really different said by Michelle, then what has been said by other wives or children of presidential candidates. Her speech wasn’t all that great. Ted Kennedy out did her by far with his speech.
Posted August 25th, 2008 at 10:08 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
Class,
They both were still at the bottom, got it?
Posted August 25th, 2008 at 10:14 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
And no is my answer to R.M. Sherman
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 2:08 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
rm,
One thing I forgot to mention about Obama, is when Michelle finished her speech, their children came out, then Obama came on screen. First he says “hi from Kansas City.” Then later he mentions he’s with a family in St. Louis. Then Michelle bends down and tells his youngest daughter to ask her daddy, what city are you in? Didn’t even know where he was. Had to laugh at that one!!
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 2:10 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
Didn’t even know where he was.
correction: should have said, he didn’t know where he was.
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 2:13 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
My answer to R.M. Sherman. No, not ever.
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 7:35 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
tasha, they were both academic underachievers, but Biden was a Democratic academic underachiever and McCain was a Republican academic underachiever. That is a “BIG, BIG difference!!”
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 8:16 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
Class: “Mrs. Obama grew up in a poor working class neighborhood on the south side of Chicago but went to Harvard Law school and has dedicated her life in service to others. Mr’s McCain’s accomplishments? Well she seems to need 7 homes to be happy.”
I’m not going to let this offensive statement go unanswered. Perhaps Class would do himself a favor by doing some reading before taking potshots at people.
According to Wikepdia, here are some of Mrs. McCain’s accomplishments:
Cindy McCain received a Bachelor of Arts in education and a Master of Arts in special education, both from the University of Southern California. There she participated in a movement therapy pilot program that laid the way for a standard treatment for children with severe disabilities; she published the work Movement Therapy: A Possible Approach in 1978. Declining a role in the family business, she then began a special education teaching career working with children with Down syndrome and other disabilities at Agua Fria High School in Avondale, Arizona.
In 1988, inspired by a vacation visit four years earlier to substandard medical facilities on Truk Lagoon, Cindy McCain founded the American Voluntary Medical Team (AVMT). It was a non-profit organization that organized trips for doctors, nurses, and other medical personnel to provide MASH-like emergency medical care to disaster-struck or war-torn third-world areas such as Micronesia, Vietnam (before relations were normalized between them and the U.S.), Kuwait (arriving five days after the conclusion of the Gulf War), Iraq, Nicaragua, India, Bangladesh and El Salvador. She led 55 of these missions over the next seven years, with each being of at least two weeks’ duration. AVMT also supplied treatment to poor sick children around the world. In 1993, Cindy McCain and the AVMT were honored with an award from Food for the Hungry.
She became actively involved with Operation Smile in 2001, taking parts in trips with it to Morocco, Vietnam, and India. She was honored by the organization in 2005, and sits on its board of directors. She joined the board of directors of CARE in 2005. She is on the board of the HALO Trust, and has visited operations to remove landmines in Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Mozambique, and Angola. She makes financial contributions to these organizations via her family trust, and views her role on them as watching them in the field and to ensure they are frugal and their money is being spent effectively. On occasion she has criticized foreign regimes on human rights grounds, such as Myanmar’s military junta.
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 8:31 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
Or this lie.
” Mrs. Obama grew up in a poor working class neighborhood on the south side of Chicago ”
So poor that her mother could stay home with her children during the day instead of NEEDING to work to help support the family.
“”Michelle was from a middle-class family,” confirmed one of her long-time friends, Angela Acree.
“She came from a regular family. They had a nice home. It wasn’t a mansion, but it was just fine. It was a decent neighbourhood.”
The Robinsons grew up on the upper floor of a house built in the Twenties. Number 7436 South Euclid Avenue - a classical reference to the Greek mathematician which found an appropriate echo in Michelle’s subsequent respect for traditional learning - even has a small garden, shaded by a large elm tree, and an ornate stone bench.
The South Side of Chicago has long had its share of gang-infested housing ‘projects’ but with the University of Chicago hospital close by, there were plenty of white professionals in the area as well as hard-working families in the Robinsons’ own image.
No one could pretend they were rich and it is true that her father, Frasier Robinson, spent some time as a maintenance worker for Chicago’s Department of Water Management.
However, he was a good deal more than the labourer that many seem to imagine.
Indeed, according to family friends, Michelle’s father was a volunteer organiser for the city’s Democratic Party, a by-word for machine politics in America, and his loyalty was rewarded with a well-paid engineering job at Chicago’s water plant. Even before overtime, he earned $42,686 - 25 per cent more than High School teachers at the time.
Michelle’s mother stayed at home and devoted her energies to her and her older brother Craig. Marian Robinson nurtured great ambitions for both her children, along with the traditional values which are now serving Michelle so well.”
But typical, make it sound worse than it actually was in order to garner sympathy. In other words, another lie to bolster a failing position.
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 8:32 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
Was Obama in Kansas City or St. Louis last night? Is Biden his choice for president or vice-president. These two gaffs are very recent. Had McCain made them, the ads would have been out telling us how he is so old he has no memory.
It’s all b.s. The Democrats will likely use the 7 house deal repeatedly over the next few days to poke fun at McCain. That will just trigger a vicious response from the Republicans who have a long list of goodies to throw at Obama.
It’s all a waste of time.
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 8:40 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
Well, that sentiment pretty much sums up the entire political process any more.
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 9:34 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
Tasha53: They both were still at the bottom, got it?
So you think that bottom 0.7% is the same as bottom 12%? Is this what is called fuzzy math?
I will take 12% interest on my savings and you can have the 0.7%
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 9:40 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
WLJ: ” Mrs. Obama grew up in a poor working class neighborhood on the south side of Chicago ”
So poor that her mother could stay home with her children during the day instead of NEEDING to work to help support the family.
Typical of WLJ’s style: twisting one statement around to make it say something different that what was actually written. Let’s make it simple so that even he could understand.
Michelle Obama grew up in a poor working class neighborhood on Chicago’s South side. Her father was a maintenance worker who managed to keep the family together by his hard work. However he suffered from multiple sclerosis and eventually died of the disease. Get it? Growing up in a poor neighborhood is what was written. Not that they were dirt poor.
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 9:44 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
I find it funny that anyone would be decrying a candidate’s intelligence, when the President they love so dearly can’t even pronounce ‘nuclear’….
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 9:46 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
BFrog: “These two gaffs(sic) are very recent.”
Are we talking about catching fish here? Perhaps you would do better in your native language.
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 10:29 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
classless, one more time, real slow….
Reposted from my above post.
” “”Michelle was from a middle-class family,” confirmed one of her long-time friends, Angela Acree.
“She came from a regular family. They had a nice home. It wasn’t a mansion, but it was just fine. It was a decent neighbourhood.” ”
DECENT NEIGHBORHOOD is the key phrase in there moron.
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 10:51 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
Class: So you think that bottom 0.7% is the same as bottom 12%? Is this what is called fuzzy math?
No matter how you want to put it, they both were still at the bottom of their class, plain and simple.
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 10:52 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
Here is what one person who grew up in the area had to say about Michelle Obama:
“She attended Bouchet for grade school. Her mother still lives in south shoool. Her school friends said she was smart.
“I wouldn’t send my puppy to Bouchet…” “It’s really ghetto there. These south shore elementary schools are dumping grounds. Too many apt. and too much concentated poverty. The schools are just overwhelmed.”
Do you really think your arguments are improved by name calling?
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 10:58 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
Who is the ‘one person who grew up in the area’?
And is the second quote from the same person?
And how reliable is this person?
Is it a close ally of miz olbammer and desires to deflect any actual knowledge of the area in question?
The name calling is similar to “college dropout” only based on actual knowledge of your intellectual abilities.
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 11:03 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
Former US Representative Jim Leach would hire him. 30 years as a republican, here’s the transcript of his speech last night, which, curiously, was not covered on any of the MSM.
—
Full Text: Former U.S. Rep. Jim Leach Speech to Democratic National Convention
Filed Under Democratic National Convention, Presidential Campaign 2008
As a Republican, I stand before you with deep respect for the history and traditions of my political party. But it is clear to all Americans that something is out of kilter in our great republic. In less than a decade America’s political and economic standing in the world has been diminished. Our nation’s extraordinary leadership in so many areas is simply not reflected in the partisan bickering and ideological politics of Washington. Seldom has the case for an inspiring new political ethic been more compelling. And seldom has an emerging leader so matched the needs of the moment.
The platform of this transformative figure is a call for change. The change Barack Obama is advocating is far more than a break with today’s politics. It is a clarion call for renewal rooted in time-tested American values that tap Republican, as well as Democratic traditions.
Perspective is difficult to bring to events of the day, but in sweeping terms, there have been four great debates in our history to which both parties have contributed. The first debate, led by Thomas Jefferson, the first Democrat to be elected president, centered on the question of whether a country could be established, based on The Rights of Man.
The second debate, led by Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican to be elected president, was about definitions—whether The Rights of Man applied to individuals who were neither pale nor male. It took almost two centuries of struggle, hallmarked by a civil war, the suffrage and abolitionist movements, the Harlem renaissance and a courageous civil rights leadership to bring meaning to the values embedded in the Declaration of Independence.
The third debate, symbolized by the new deal of Franklin Roosevelt and the emphasis on individual initiative of Ronald Reagan, involves the question of opportunity, whether rights are fully meaningful if all citizens are not given a chance to succeed and provide for their families.
The fourth debate, which acquired grim relevance with the dawn of the nuclear age, is the question of whether any rights are possible without peace and environmental security.
The American progressive tradition reflected in these debates spans Democratic standard bearers from the prairie populist William Jennings Bryan to the Camelot statesman, John F. Kennedy. It includes Republicans like Teddy Roosevelt, who built up the National Parks system and broke down corporate monopolies, and Dwight David Eisenhower, who ran on a pledge to end a war in Korea, brought a stop to European colonial intervention in the Middle East, quietly integrated the Washington, D.C., school system and not so quietly sent the 101st Airborne to Little Rock to squash segregation in public schools throughout the country.
In models of international statecraft, progressive leadership includes Al Gore, who helped galvanize worldwide understanding of the most challenging environmental threat currently facing the planet, and our current president’s father, who led an internationally sanctioned coalition to oust Saddam Hussein from Kuwait.
In Congress, Democratic senators like Pat Moynihan and Mike Mansfield served in Republican administrations. On the Republican side, Arthur Vandenberg helped President Truman launch the Marshall Plan, and Everett Dirksen backed Lyndon Johnson’s landmark civil rights legislation.
In troubled times, it was understood that country comes before party, that in perilous moments mutual concern for the national interest must be the only factor in political judgments. This does not mean that debate within and between the political parties should not be vibrant. Yet what frustrates so many citizens is the lack of bipartisanship in Washington and the way today’s Republican Party has broken with its conservative heritage.
The party that once emphasized individual rights has gravitated in recent years toward regulating values. The party of military responsibility has taken us to war with a country that did not attack us. The party that formerly led the world in arms control has moved to undercut treaties crucial to the defense of the earth. The party that prides itself on conservation has abdicated its responsibilities in the face of global warming. And the party historically anchored in fiscal restraint has nearly doubled the national debt, squandering our precious resources in an undisciplined and unprecedented effort to finance a war with tax cuts.
America has seldom faced more critical choices: whether we should maintain an occupational force for decades in a country and region that resents western intervention or elect a leader who, in a carefully structured way, will bring our troops home from Iraq as the heroes they are. Whether it is wise to continue to project power largely alone with flickering support around the world or elect a leader who will follow the model of General Eisenhower and this president’s father and lead in concert with allies.
Whether it is prudent to borrow from future generations to pay for today’s reckless fiscal policies or elect a leader who will shore up our budgets and return to a strong dollar. Whether it is preferable to continue the policies that have weakened our position in the world, deepened our debt and widened social divisions or elect a leader who will emulate John F. Kennedy and relight a lamp of fairness at home and reassert an energizing mix of realism and idealism abroad.
The portfolio of challenges passed on to the next president will be as daunting as any since the Great Depression and World War II. This is not a time for politics as usual or for run-of-the-mill politicians. Little is riskier to the national interest than more of the same. America needs new ideas, new energy and a new generation of leadership.
Hence, I stand before you proud of my party’s contributions to American history but, as a citizen, proud as well of the good judgment of good people in this good party, in nominating a transcending candidate, an individual whom I am convinced will recapture the American dream and be a truly great president: the senator from Abraham Lincoln’s state—Barack Obama. Thank you.
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 11:17 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
would i hire a person if i had knowledge of his past associations, not a chance. would i hire a person who seems to be more interested in what the world thinks of him more than his own country, no way. would i hire an employee that had limited experience or one that had vast experience; i would hire no experience to carry the bags of the experienced one who would be the ceo. finally, the question that leaves me most troubled as an employer…. would i hire someone that wants to close the gap between employee/management pay, regardless of job title or would i want to reward the employee who has worked his way up the ladder through education and hard work. seems like the only answer is mccain. our country was built on the blood,sweat, & tears of men like mccain while men like obama were at college drinking and doing drugs. there has to be accountability for one’s own actions. just a side note, if obama does win, i hope that he will be afforded every courtesy that president bush has experienced in the last 8 years. obama bridging the gap between parties, not a chance.
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 11:23 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
Tasha53: “then Obama came on screen. First he says “hi from Kansas City.” Then later he mentions he’s with a family in St. Louis … Didn’t even know where he was. Had to laugh at that one!!”
John McCain: “It’s a serious situation, but there’s a lot of things we need to do. We have a lot of work to do and I’m afraid it’s a very hard struggle, particularly given the situation on the Iraq/Pakistan border.” (ABC’s Rick Klein noted: “Iraq and Pakistan do not share a border. Afghanistan and Pakistan do.” Iran is in-between.)
Tasha53: Introduces Biden as “the next president,(oops) uh next vice president.”
John McCain: “I will veto every single beer, uh bill.”
Tasha53: Then Michelle bends down and tells his youngest daughter to ask her daddy, what city are you in?
Jonathon Martin: “When McCain needed a quick reminder in Jordan last week on how to characterize Islamic radicals in Iraq receiving aid from Iran, Lieberman was there to whisper into his colleague’s ear. A day later in Israel, the Connecticut senator proved equally helpful, stepping in to help McCain clarify the meaning of the Jewish holiday of Purim.”
My opinion: Seeing one side’s gaffes without seeing the other side’s is cognitive dissonance. Bringing up one without bringing up the other is merely special pleading. Neither quality is the hallmark of objective credibility.
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 11:23 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
For those with reading comprehension problems:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZtoZYfk3Gw
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 11:26 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
Nevermind the fact Obama can probably tell you how many houses he owns….
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 11:30 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
Tasha53:”No matter how you want to put it, they both were still at the bottom of their class, plain and simple.”
Anything below the 50th percentile is the bottom. Plain and simple.
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 11:31 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
*Class: “Are we talking about catching fish here? Perhaps you would do better in your native language.”
I’m sure I would. But you understood what I meant and if I wrote it in Spanish, you wouldn’t.
Class: “Mr’s McCain’s accomplishments? Well she seems to need 7 homes to be happy.” ———————–I believe the correct contraction would be Mrs., and not Mr’s.
What’s your excuse?
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 11:38 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
Yeah, that’s the thing about pouncing on little spelling or grammatical errors…it can end up boomeranging on you.
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 11:40 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
Golfdoc: “seems like the only answer is mccain. our country was built on the blood,sweat, & tears of men like mccain while men like obama were at college drinking and doing drugs.”
Certainly one of the more uninformed statements I have read recently. McCain’s father was a Navy admiral. He had a guaranteed admission to the U.S. Naval Academy where he graduated in the bottom 0.7% of his class as an acknowleged party boy and hard drinker. Obama got where he did by working hard raised by a single mother with no built in advantages except brains. To suggest that Obama was drinking and doing drugs while at Harvard Law School is to reveal a vast ignorance about what is necessary to get through an elite program such as this.
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 11:44 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
Class: Anything below the 50th percentile is the bottom. Plain and simple.
And your point is, since we have already stated they were at the bottom??????
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 11:49 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
So, Class, when WAS Obama drinking and doing drugs?
The polls are tied, my friend. The Dems should be up double digits. What’s wrong with this picture? Is the messiah losing his mystique?
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 11:50 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
Perhaps golfdoc has spent a little too much time at the 19th hole at the elite country club…Although his less than perfect grasp of the language would suggest that he/she is just another GJ flunkie.
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 11:52 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
BFrog: “I’m sure I would. But you understood what I meant and if I wrote it in Spanish, you wouldn’t.”
And you would be wrong based on another faulty assumption. I speak, read and write Spanish as a result of the several years consulting I did for the Ford Foundation and the Interamerican Development Bank when I was a professor. I have spent considerable time in every South American country except Paraguay and most Central American countries. I have given lectures in Spanish at South American universities and indeed one semester I taught a biomedical course in Spanish in Lima Peru. I also gave talks in Spanish when I was worldwide head of Research, Development and Clinical studies for one of the Pharmaceutical compnies. I also speak and read some German and read French and Italian.
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 12:00 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
Bullishfrog,
Obama smoked pot, drank and did cocaine while in high school. He did smoke pot while attending Occidental College in Los Angeles, and drank beer, but not as much as his peers.
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 12:02 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
Class, estoy muy impresionado. De ahora en adelante nos vamos a comunicar en espanol.
Per esto no explica porque escribiste Mr’s en vez the Mrs. Quizas la proxima vez debes the escribir: Sra.
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 12:02 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
So, that makes him as qualified as our current President, right?
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 12:03 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
Here’s a quote from Obama:
“I blew a few smoke rings, remembering those years,” Obama wrote in “Dreams From My Father,” in a section of the book about his college days. “Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it.”
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 12:04 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
tasha: Well, we all know, that if a Democrat wants to be elected president, it’s OK to have smoked pot, as long as none was inhaled. Did Obama inhale?
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 12:06 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
Curmudgeon: So, that makes him as qualified as our current President, right?
Is this question directed to me or Bullishfrog?
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 12:07 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
good one bullishfrog.
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 12:09 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
It’s directed at anyone who thinks drug use disqualifies someone to be President, while completely ignoring your buddy GWB’s frat-boy days (daze?)….
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 12:12 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
Oh My!!
Here we are, 3 days after the highly awaited VP announcement, and what does today’s poll show?
“PRINCETON, NJ — It’s official: Barack Obama has received no bounce in voter support out of his selection of Sen. Joe Biden to be his vice presidential running mate.
Gallup Poll Daily tracking from Aug. 23-25, the first three-day period falling entirely after Obama’s Saturday morning vice presidential announcement, shows 46% of national registered voters backing John McCain and 44% supporting Obama, not appreciably different from the previous week’s standing for both candidates. This is the first time since Obama clinched the nomination in early June, though, that McCain has held any kind of advantage over Obama in Gallup Poll Daily tracking.”
What is happening here? Doesn’t everyone know that the genious from Harvard is the messiah?
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 12:23 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
Curmudgeon: It’s directed at anyone who thinks drug use disqualifies someone to be President, while completely ignoring your buddy GWB’s frat-boy days (daze?)….
That’s funny, I never said anything about drug use being a disqualification for someone to be president. I merely answered Bullishfrog’s question he posted to Class: So, Class, when WAS Obama drinking and doing drugs?
And where do you get off calling GWB my buddy? I have never said anything, at anytime, in any forum here that he was.
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 12:30 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
Fair enough. I’ll accept your statement that you’re no fan of GWB, and I’ll retract that assertion, with apologies. All I’m saying is that a similar “revelation” from a Republican would be heralded as “honest, upfront, brave”, and all that crap by everyone who’s using it against Obama.
Look, I don’t think Obama is perfect, or the Messiah, or a newer, darker JFK. I just think he’s probably capable of doing a better job then the lying, callous, shallow fool that we have now.
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 12:35 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
Curmudgeon,
apology accepted.
We will never know truly who Obama is and what he will do, unless he becomes president. Like most candidates, they say all kinds of things to get elected, but don’t always come through afterwards.
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 12:37 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
forgot to add: no I am not a fan of GWB. Was in the beginning of his presidency, but as time went on, I lost interest in him.
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 12:42 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
Just to be fair; I think McCain could do better, too; It won’t scar me for life if he wins. I just wish the attacks on Obama weren’t so nasty, because some of them smack of (you’ll pardon the pun) a darker turn of mind.
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 12:45 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
BFrog: Class, estoy muy impresionado. De ahora en adelante nos vamos a comunicar en espanol.
Per esto no explica porque escribiste Mr’s en vez the Mrs. Quizas la proxima vez debes the escribir: Sra.
If we communicated in Castellano from now on as you suggest, no one else would be able to understand us. Besides I am sure your English is much better than my Spanish since I have not lived in a Spanish speaking culture for some time y he olvidado casi todo my Castellano porque no tengo opportunidad para practicarlo. The reason I did not explain why I made the typo with respect to Mrs. is because I did not think you seriously believed that I did not know how to write this contraction.
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 12:48 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
The president who didn’t inhale. The one who was the most idolized Democrat on Earth (until a few months ago). The one who called Obama’s candidacy a “fantasy”, said the following in Denver today:
“Suppose you’re a voter, and you’ve got candidate X and candidate Y. Candidate X agrees with you on everything, but you don’t think that candidate can deliver on anything at all. Candidate Y you agree with on about half the issues, but he can deliver. Which candidate are you going to vote for?”
“During the contentious and at times nasty nomination battle between Clinton and Obama, the Clinton campaign repeatedly pushed the question of whether Obama, a freshman senator, had the experience or the ability to deliver on his promises if elected. Clinton, they argued, was more suited to do so.”
It is my most sincere hope, for the sake of keeping the election close, that the Clintons are able to convince Hilary’s supporters, that they really, really, really, want to see Obama win (even if they don’t really mean it).
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 12:51 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
Class: “The reason I did not explain why I made the typo with respect to Mrs. is because I did not think you seriously believed that I did not know how to write this contraction.”
Of course I knew it was a typo and I saw no reason to bring it up until you decided to deride my post.
By the way, your castellano is pretty good. Just fix opportunidad to oportunidad.
You know, Class, most of my friends and family are flaming liberals. We argue a lot but we still get along very well. I bet you and I could do the same.
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 12:54 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
The Clintons have only ever cared for one thing; themselves.
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 12:55 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
Off Subject: BFrog you want to hear a funny one from my days in learning Spanish (by forcing myself to live in areas of South America where no one spoke English). Generally when I did not knw the proper Spanish noun for something, I would just latinize an English word which worked a lot of the time because there are so many cognates betweeen the two languages.
However, one time at a cocktail party I accidentally dropped a glass on the floor and broke it. So I blurted out: “Estoy embarrasado” Everyone had a good laugh for reasons which you and I will know about, but few others on this forum. Que verguenza!
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 12:56 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
Curmudgeon: I just wish the attacks on Obama weren’t so nasty, because some of them smack of (you’ll pardon the pun) a darker turn of mind.
Attacks on McCain also have been pretty nasty.
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 12:57 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
Curmudgeon, I totally agree with you on that one.
Oh, and by the way, before I get jumped on for misspelling in post 60, that’s Hillary with 2 ls.
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 1:01 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
tasha, I totally agree with post #64; I’ve seen some people (I have no idea who) going so far as to try and discredit/downplay McCain’s time and ordeal as a POW. I rank that right along with Fox News calling Michelle Obama’s “babymomma”.
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 1:04 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
Class: However, one time at a cocktail party I accidentally dropped a glass on the floor and broke it. So I blurted out: “Estoy embarrasado” Everyone had a good laugh for reasons which you and I will know about, but few others on this forum. Que verguenza!
What a shame you say Class. I’m not ashamed about not speaking Spanish, have no desire to. But I do know a little, and that is enough for me.
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 1:09 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
Curmudgeon,
Your post #66. This is always going to happen during election time, as a matter of fact, anytime. It’s part of human nature, sad but true. All candidates are targets.
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 1:21 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
tasha: “What a shame you say Class. I’m not ashamed about not speaking Spanish, have no desire to. But I do know a little, and that is enough for me.”
Well, tasha, speaking Spanish is becoming a bigger and bigger advantage in this country. While I was born in Cuba, my parents are European, so I don’t look Spanish. It’s amazing how great it is to be able to listen to others speaking Spanish when they think I don’t understand. Or, to see the expression on the faces of Spanish speakers when I address them in Spanish.
I am going to Amsterdam on Saturday and I don’t speak Dutch. I’m sure glad that they speak English.
Knowing different langauges is always an advantage.
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 1:46 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
Tasha53: “What a shame you say Class. I’m not ashamed about not speaking Spanish, have no desire to. But I do know a little, and that is enough for me.”
Well here is where knowing a little Spanish is not good enough Tasha. I did not say “what a shame” I said “what shame” or “such shame”. I was referring to my faux pas in Spanish. “Estoy embarrasado” does not mean “I am embarrased as I had had mistakenly assumed but instead “I am pregnant”, hence the joke.
If I had wanted to say “what a shame” I would have written “Es una lastima” or “Que lastima”
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 2:00 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
class, i’lda loved to see the response you got with that…lol…curmudgeon, i find myself agreeing with most of your statements on this subject, scary as that is….personally, i thought (past tense, mind) that bush would be a welcome change from hillary…don’t really have a problem with bill, i’ld like to throw down a few with that guy, he looks like fun…but i didn’t forsee the reactionary results of 9/11 coming, either…i do think we’re better off without saddam, but, as i’m sure most everybody agrees, we should have taken care of afghanistan first and formost…i’m tired of being the planets policemen….i love democracy and the peoples “god-given” rights (no atheists respond, please, that was tongue in cheek) and the defense of the same, but people from those countries need to make the changes themselves before we ever get involved…the only way i would see it as necessary is if it happened to one of our neighbors to the north or south…
back on topic, i won’t vote for bammer simply because of experience, and his economic proposals…that simple, nothing more…i’m half tempted to write in alfred e neuman or jerry garcia….don’t see how either would make anything worse
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 2:01 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
bullishfrog,
Have a safe and fun trip to Amsterdam.
As far as speaking Spanish is concerned, as being an advantage, I have no need for it. But I do feel strongly, that if you move to America and choose to stay, learn English. I, nor anyone else should have to learn someone else’s language from another country in order to communicate with them. And I would expect the same of me to learn the language of another country, should I decide to move to one.
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 2:07 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
hitekrednect: i’m half tempted to write in alfred e neuman or jerry garcia….don’t see how either would make anything worse
LOL!! I’d vote for Jerry Garcia.
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 2:16 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
Class,
Hmmm, I thought Que lastima meant, what a pity.
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 2:29 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
tasha: “… But I do feel strongly, that if you move to America and choose to stay, learn English.”
I couldn’t agree more. As a matter of fact, I am strongly opposed to bilingual schools where the aim is to teach in Spanish to those who do not speak English. Full immersion is the fasted way to learn. That is how I did it.
Nevertheless, the fact is that we have many immigrants to this country and it takes time for them to learn. I can’t tell you how often being able to speak Spanish has helped me in communicating with folks who would not otherwise understand me. And when I travel to a foreign country, being able to speak Spanish helps in understanding other languages like Italian and Portugese.
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 8:36 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
C52″So you think that bottom 0.7% is the same as bottom 12%? Is this what is called fuzzy math? I will take 12% interest on my savings and you can have the 0.7%” Sounds like fuzzy economics to me. If you invested in the bottom 12% of investments you would be still have a lemon. To infer that you can gauge much of anything from a long ago class rank when you are talking about two accomplished Senators is sophomoric.
Is class rank much of an indicator? Bill Clinton was a Rhodes Scholar and was impeached. George W. Bush had a higher GPA at Yale than Al Gore. So what? Would Joe Biden be a good V.P.? He certainly brings some experience to the ticket.
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 8:50 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
Correction in the last post, I said Al Gore when I meant to say John Kerry.
Posted August 26th, 2008 at 10:23 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
Sullivan: “Is class rank much of an indicator? Bill Clinton was a Rhodes Scholar and was impeached. George W. Bush had a higher GPA at Yale than Al Gore. So what?”
Well graduate and professional schools seem to think so. George Bush was denied admittance to the law school in his home state at the Univ. of Texas because of his grades. You do not get into medical school with low grades as an undergraduate because who wants a surgeon who got a C- in Human Anatomy? The same is true of graduate school (at least in the sciences where i am most familiar with the standards). The people who deny that low grades in College means anything are generally the ones who got the low grades-if indeed they went to college at all.
And what is the source of your information concerning the relative grades of John Kerry and George Bush at Yale? Kerry had a 76 average at Yale for most of his career rising to 81 in his senior year. As far as I am aware George Bush has refused to authorize Yale to release his grades although he was supposed to have graduated in the bottom 15% of his class.
And Bill Clinton, one of the best Presidents of the last century, was impeached because of Republican politics and personal jealousy resulting in an enormous waste of money and time over a personal matter. Compare the economy of the nation during his presidency when my stocks made more money than I ever imagined and where he ended with a budget surplus to the economy of the last eight years which tanked because of the moronic policies of GW Bush resulting in the largests deficit by far of any Presidency. It is noteworthy that the Reagan (also a dim bulb) administration was the second worst in this regard. How anyone in view of this record can prefer the fiscal responsibility of the Repubs compared to the Dems must be a pretty dim bulb himself.
Posted August 27th, 2008 at 8:04 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
Clinton had a surplus because the Republican Congress, under Gingrich, forced him into it. Reagan had a deficit because the Democratic congress refused to cut spending. Clinton was impeached because he lied under oath.
Posted August 27th, 2008 at 8:50 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
bullishfrog states: “Clinton was impeached because he lied under oath.”
That is true but it was on a matter which was none of anyone’s business but that of Clinton and his wife. The special prosecutor and his staff were told by the court that Clinton’s personal life was none of their business. However they managed to get into it anyway. So, please don’t tell us that it was not politically motivated.
As far as the ‘Republicans’ forcing Clinton into a surplus, now perhaps bullishfrom will apply the same standard to the current deficit; i.e. who is responsible for it when Bush & Co. also had a Republican Congress and Senate for the first six years of their tenure.
Posted August 27th, 2008 at 9:11 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
RL: “So, please don’t tell us that it was not politically motivated.”
I won’t. There is little that happens in Washington that is NOT politically motivated. Had he not broken the law, however, he would not have been impeached.
“As far as the ‘Republicans’ forcing Clinton into a surplus, now perhaps bullishfrom will apply the same standard to the current deficit; i.e. who is responsible for it when Bush & Co. also had a Republican Congress and Senate for the first six years of their tenure.”
First of all, the bulk of the deficit that accumulated over the last 8 years was due to the war. And whether or not it was worth it is a whole other subject.
Having said that, I have no problem admitting that Republicans bear as much of the responsibility for the current deficit stemming from non-defense spending as the Democrats. Not only did Bush fail to veto as much as much non-defense spending as he should have, but Republican lawmakers were as irresponsible as Democrats normally are when it came to non-defense spending in the last eight years.
Posted August 27th, 2008 at 9:19 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
The business analyst journal, Forbes, ranks Clinton as the best among the 10 presidents surrounding him with respect to his effect on the economy.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5474580/.
So Bfrogs rather simplistic assessment of how the economy is controlled during various administrations is a conclusion not shared by professionals in the field.
Posted August 27th, 2008 at 9:22 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
Bfrogs rather simplistic assessment of how the economy is controlled during various administrations is a conclusion not shared by professionals in the field.
The business analyst journal, Forbes, ranks Clinton as the best among the 10 presidents surrounding him with respect to his effect on the economy.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5474580/.
Posted August 27th, 2008 at 9:58 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
The deficit has more ‘discretionary spending’ in it than the total war costs.
The war is covered IN the Constitution, discretionary spending is merely a vote buying scheme funded with money stolen from the taxpayers, both current and future.
Posted August 27th, 2008 at 10:14 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
Class: “So Bfrogs rather simplistic assessment of how the economy is controlled during various administrations is a conclusion not shared by professionals in the field.”
I disagree. The ranking is based on how the economy during a given president’s term. It has zero to do with what policies or what part of the government was responsible, if at all, for the economy’s performance.
I claim that whatever responsibility might be attributed for deficit reduction to government, in Clinton’s term, was due, first, to George Bush Sr. He got Congress to agree that no new spending could be done without offsetting revenues. In order to do that the Democrats forced him to hike taxes. It cost Bush a second term as the Democrats, after forcing him to raise taxes, accused him of breaking his read “my lips” promise.
Second, the Republican Congress during the last 6 years of Clinton’s term kept spending and taxes under control. Clinton did pass a tax increase in his first 2 years, while the Democrats were in charge of the Congress, but no further tax increases were allowed once the Republicans took over.
Posted August 27th, 2008 at 10:32 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
Bullishfrog responds with the following (on Clinton): “Had he not broken the law, however, he would not have been impeached.”
He is correct and he should not have done so. Now, would bullishfrog also admit that the subject that led up to the breaking of that law revolved around something that was really nobody else’s business; i.e. his personal life?
Posted August 27th, 2008 at 10:49 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
RL “Now, would bullishfrog also admit that the subject that led up to the breaking of that law revolved around something that was really nobody else’s business; i.e. his personal life?”
I, frankly, don’t care that the man is a serial adulterer. I think he is a sleezebag and nothing that he does would surprise me. I also have to question why a wife would remain married to such a man no matter what ambitions she might have.
Posted August 27th, 2008 at 10:52 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
Would the failure as a politician from Delta mind admitting that if mr clintune had stronger moral and ethical values this conversation would be moot?
Posted August 27th, 2008 at 10:53 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
As an aside bobbie.
In a County with the population of Delta County, HOW does one garner zero percent of the vote?
Posted August 27th, 2008 at 11:02 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
It is always interesting to observe Mr. Johnson criticize others for their supposed “failure’s” when it is quite obvious that he is probably guilty of the greatest failure of all, not even trying. Or, perhaps he might wish to tell us of his own efforts (if any), that were directed at anything more than fulfilling any obligation other than for his own benefit; i.e. fulfilling his own wants.
Posted August 27th, 2008 at 11:05 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
RL, let me just add, to show you that I believe the private life of a politician should not be counted against him, I would be fully behind the Democrats if they put up Mr. Edwards as their candidate for the presidency.
Posted August 27th, 2008 at 11:11 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
Now little bobbie, I listed a provable failure in your life, ow please be so kind as to present a PROVABLE example in mine?
And please do not try to present anything from the proven liar J. Eugene Fox.
Posted August 27th, 2008 at 11:15 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
BFRog: Second, the Republican Congress during the last 6 years of Clinton’s term kept spending and taxes under control.
I repeat that your analysis is a gross oversimplification. The State of the economy is greatly influenced by the actions of a sitting president, which was recognized by the analysts at Forbes. Since you apparently ignored what they had to say (except for the role of the first Bush pay as you go policy), I present some of it here for unbiased readers to evaluate:
” Clinton campaigned on the economy and had remarkable success. GDP growth during his eight years averaged 3.5 percent per year, second only to the combined Kennedy/Johnson years and ahead of Jimmy Carter and Reagan. The economy also added jobs at a faster rate under Clinton than under any postwar president except Carter.
For Carter, however, job growth merely matched an increase in the size of the labor force, while Clinton had much better luck curbing the unemployment rate as well. The result: The public’s confidence in the economy hit an all-time high in the summer of 2000, near the end of Clinton’s second term, according to Gallup. In the summer of 1992, before he was elected, it was at an all-time low.
The key to Clinton’s success, says Alice Rivlin, a Brookings Institution scholar who served as his director of management and budget, was adhering to the “pay/go” agreement first forged by President George H. W. Bush and a Democratic Congress, whereby tax cuts or entitlement increases had to be funded on a current basis. She says Clinton raised taxes at just the right time — when incomes were starting to rise after years of stagnation — leading to a surge of receipts. The result was the smallest government in terms of its percentage of GDP since Johnson, and the first substantial budget surpluses since Harry S. Truman.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5474580/
Posted August 27th, 2008 at 11:26 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
Bullisfrog - You said, “I, frankly, don’t care that the man is a serial adulterer. I think he is a sleezebag and nothing that he does would surprise me. I also have to question why a wife would remain married to such a man no matter what ambitions she might have.”
Why don’t you try to be a little less prudish and shake off the shackles of your conservative, evangelical religious hang-ups?
Let’s face reality, monogamy is not natural. If I weren’t a godless, heathen socialist, communist, liberal Atheist - I’d be a member of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints.
Now, there’s a group who knows what it’s all about!!
Posted August 27th, 2008 at 11:28 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
From the JOINT ECONOMIC COMMITTEE
Congress of The United States.
” The Reagan Tax Cuts: Lessons for Tax Reform
During the summer of 1981 the central focus of policy debate was on the Economic Recovery Tax Act (ERTA) of 1981, the Reagan tax cuts. The core of this proposal was a version of the Kemp-Roth bill providing a 25 percent across-the-board cut in personal marginal tax rates.
By reducing marginal tax rates and improving economic incentives, ERTA would increase the flow of resources into production, boosting economic growth.
Opponents used static revenue projections to argue that ERTA would be a giveaway to the rich because their tax payments would fall.
The criticism that the tax payments of the rich would fall under ERTA was based on a static conception of human behavior.
As a 1982 JEC study pointed out,[1] similar across-the-board tax cuts had been implemented in the 1920s as the Mellon tax cuts, and in the 1960s as the Kennedy tax cuts.
In both cases the reduction of high marginal tax rates actually increased tax payments by “the rich,” also increasing their share of total individual income taxes paid.
Unfortunately, estimates of ERTA by the Democrat-controlled CBO continued to show falling tax payment by upper income taxpayers, even after actual IRS data had become available showing a surge of income tax payments by affluent taxpayers.
Given the current interest in tax reform and tax relief, a review of the effects of the Reagan tax cuts on taxpayer behavior and tax burden provides useful information.
During the 1980s ERTA had reduced personal tax rates by about 25 percent, while the Tax Reform Act of 1986 chopped them yet again.
Tax Rates and Tax Revenues
High marginal tax rates discourage work effort, saving, and investment, and promote tax avoidance and tax evasion.
A reduction in high marginal tax rates would boost long term economic growth, and reduce the attractiveness of tax shelters and other forms of tax avoidance.
The economic benefits of ERTA were summarized by President Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers in 1994: “It is undeniable that the sharp reduction in taxes in the early 1980s was a strong impetus to economic growth.”
Unfortunately, the Council could not bring itself to acknowledge the counterproductive effects high marginal tax rates can have upon taxpayer behavior and tax avoidance activities.
Since 1984 the JEC has provided factual information about the impact of the tax cuts of the 1980s. For example, for many years the JEC has published IRS data on federal tax payments of the top 1 percent, top 5 percent, top 10 percent, and other taxpayers.
These data show that after the high marginal tax rates of 1981 were cut, tax payments and the share of the tax burden borne by the top 1 percent climbed sharply.
For example, in 1981 the top 1 percent paid 17.6 percent of all personal income taxes, but by 1988 their share had jumped to 27.5 percent, a 10 percentage point increase. The graph below illustrates changes in the tax burden during this period.
The share of the income tax burden borne by the top 10 percent of taxpayers increased from 48.0 percent in 1981 to 57.2 percent in 1988. Meanwhile, the share of income taxes paid by the bottom 50 percent of taxpayers dropped from 7.5 percent in 1981 to 5.7 percent in 1988.
A middle class of taxpayers can be defined as those between the 50th percentile and the 95th percentile (those earning between $18,367 and $72,735 in 1988).
Between 1981 and 1988, the income tax burden of the middle class declined from 57.5 percent in 1981 to 48.7 percent in 1988. This 8.8 percentage point decline in middle class tax burden is entirely accounted for by the increase borne by the top one percent.
Several conclusions follow from these data. First of all, reduction in high marginal tax rates can induce taxpayers to lessen their reliance on tax shelters and tax avoidance, and expose more of their income to taxation.
The result in this case was a 51 percent increase in real tax payments by the top one percent. Meanwhile, the tax rate reduction reduced the tax payments of middle class and poor taxpayers. The net effect was a marked shift in the tax burden toward the top 1 percent amounting to about 10 percentage points. Lower top marginal tax rates had encouraged these taxpayers to generate more taxable income.
The 1993 Clinton tax increase appears to having the opposite effect on the willingness of wealthy taxpayers to expose income to taxation.
According to IRS data, the income generated by the top one percent of income earners actually declined in 1993.
This decline is especially significant since the retroactivity of the Clinton tax increase in that year limited the ability of taxpayers to deploy tax avoidance strategies, temporarily resulting in an increase in their tax burden.
Moreover, according to the FY 1997 Clinton budget submission, individual income tax revenues as a share of GDP will be lower during the first four years of the Clinton tax increase, which include the effects of the 1990 tax increase, than under the last four years of the Reagan tax changes (FY 1986-89).
Furthermore, according to a study published by the National Bureau for Economic Research,[2] the Clinton tax hike is failing to collect over 40 percent of the projected revenue increases.
******************************
Incidentally, the claim that unrealistic supply side Reagan Administration revenue projections caused large budget deficits during the 1980s is false.
*******************************
Nonetheless, this false allegation is often used against current tax reform proposals.
The official Reagan revenue projections immediately following enactment of ERTA did not assume huge revenue increases, and were actually quite close to the CBO revenue projections.
Even the Democrat-controlled CBO projected that deficits would fall after the enactment of the Reagan tax cuts. The real problem was a recession that neither CBO nor OMB could foresee.
Even so, individual income tax revenues rose from $244 billion in 1980 to $446 billion in 1989.
Conclusion
The Reagan tax cuts, like similar measures enacted in the 1920s and 1960s, showed that reducing excessive tax rates stimulates growth, reduces tax avoidance, and can increase the amount and share of tax payments generated by the rich. High top tax rates can induce counterproductive behavior and suppress revenues, factors that are usually missed or understated in government static revenue analysis. Furthermore, the key assumption of static revenue analysis that economic growth is not affected by tax changes is disproved by the experience of previous tax reduction programs. There is little reason to expect static revenue analysis to evaluate the economic or distributional effects of current tax reform proposals much better than it evaluated the Reagan tax program 15 years ago.
Christopher Frenze
Chief Economist to the Vice-Chairman
Posted August 27th, 2008 at 11:37 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
Class: I’m not sure where in what you just wrote, it shows ANYTHING Clinton did regarding the economy, other than raise taxes. If you think raising taxes helps economic growth, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. Alice Rivlin might be a little biased given that she was director of OMB during the Clinton administration.
The fact is that Clinton helped the economy by doing nothing. Government revenues skyrocketed because the economy was strong. The deficit disappeared because the plan established during the Bush administration limited government spending.
The current budget deficit is not the result of tax cuts. Tax revenues have risen sharply. The deficit is due to government spending that has risen even faster. Now that we have economic weakness, tax revenues are falling and the deficit will increase even further. Anyone who believes that raising taxes now will help reduce the deficit, has no concept of how the economy works.
Posted August 27th, 2008 at 11:42 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
GJ: “Why don’t you try to be a little less prudish and shake off the shackles of your conservative, evangelical religious hang-ups?”
First, I am very far away from being a conservative evangelical religious individual.
Unlike you, however, I value individuals who tell the truth and have a high moral character.
Posted August 27th, 2008 at 11:51 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
“The Reagan tax cuts, like similar measures enacted in the 1920s and 1960s, showed that reducing excessive tax rates stimulates growth, reduces tax avoidance, and can increase the amount and share of tax payments generated by the rich.”
And so Barak Obama was asked why he would increase the capital gains tax given historical evidence that doing so would reduce tax revenues. His answer was that “it was a matter of fairness”. When the questioner gave him a second chance to reply to the question, his answer was the same.
So whether raising taxes on the wealthy is beneficial to the economy or not, is of no consequence to Senator Obama. His reason for doing so is to hurt the rich. And if that happens to also hurt the economy, well, that’s the price we have to pay for fairness.
Posted August 27th, 2008 at 1:52 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
“And what is the source of your information concerning the relative grades of John Kerry and George Bush at Yale?” I actually heard it first on NPR. It was Kerry that refused to release his grades, but they came out in his Navy records. So if you are using GPA as an indicator, the voters made a good choice in 2004. You can read about it in the Boston Globe.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/06/07/yale_grades_portray_kerry_as_a_lackluster_student/
“Bill Clinton, one of the best Presidents of the last century, was impeached because of Republican politics and personal jealousy” Pure opinion. I think he was impeached because he lacked personal integrity and lied to the public. He sold jobs for sex in the Oval Office. You think Monica was hired on her qualifications?
Clinton’s economic policies evolved after the 1994 elections. Remember the national health care initiative that fell flat on its face during the first two years of his administration? It was only after the Democrats got spanked during the midterm elections that Clinton moderated his fiscal policies. Was he wise to adapt to the times? You bet. In my opinion, any time one party controls the executive and legislative branches there is a reduction in the checks and balances for spending. Look at Carter, look at G.W. Bush.
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