Michele Bachmann:

[Chuck_G]

Why does Michele Bachmann think we should cut spending? To grow business, to cut the deficit, the usual. But also because God told her we should, via last week's East Coast earthquake and Hurricane Irene. The St. Petersburg Times' Adam C. Smith reports that the presidential candidate told a Sarasota, Florida crowd this weekend, "I don't know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians. We've had an earthquake; we've had a hurricane. He said, 'Are you going to start listening to me here?' Listen to the American people because the American people are roaring right now. They know government is on a morbid obesity diet and we've got to rein in the spending."

Questions for debate:

1. Is god really worried about government spending in the U.S. and responsible for hurricanes and earthquakes to provoke fear?

2. Do you think she really believes this or it is just an appeal to the christian far right?

[East of Eden]

Reagan did not have to deal with a recession that was as large in scale as the Great Depression,

Neither does Obama.

and if the current program is not achieving the success wished for, you can thank the Republican predecessor as much as you can thank the current president as much of the policies in place now to break the recession are just a continuation of Bush's policies.

Bush's fault, huh, lol.

First, unless you have experience running government, I would tread carefully calling ideas "crackpot" whether they are yours or someone else's. I am sure it is easy to call the ball when you are watching from the auditorium.

Second, while this program was introduced by a Democratic President, it was approved by a Republican Congress. Remember, as has been pointed out before, the President just writes the memos - Congress makes the laws.

And, this program was continued and expanded upon during not just one but two Republican presidential terms, one of which he enjoyed the support of a Republican Congress and Senate. They had plenty of opportunity to change such a "crackpot" law. No one's hands are clean on this matter.

Both parties are at fault (which makes me wonder why Wyvern blames the GOP), but I give the Democrats more blame. Bush tried to rein in the problem but was stopped by Congressional Democrats.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/11/busin ... tml?src=pm

So you are telling me that this Republican president - who enjoyed more time in the seat with a Republican controlled Senate, and Congress then any Republican president in the last century and had the overt support of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, was stopped by a minority Democratic party throughout his 8 years in office? Sounds like a little bit of revisionist history. If Bush actually wanted to "fix" it, he had ample opportunity.

From my link:

Significant details must still be worked out before Congress can approve a bill. Among the groups denouncing the proposal today were the National Association of Home Builders and Congressional Democrats who fear that tighter regulation of the companies could sharply reduce their commitment to financing low-income and affordable housing.

''These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis,'' said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ''The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.''

Representative Melvin L. Watt, Democrat of North Carolina, agreed.

''I don't see much other than a shell game going on here, moving something from one agency to another and in the process weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing,'' Mr. Watt said.

[East of Eden]

Wow how radical the republicans got rid of a jobs program long after the job pool dried up. It isn't opposition to a plan to eliminate a program that no longer is needed. As you noted here unemployment was 2% which is actually under what is considered full employment so exactly why in a war footing would a government keep a useless program where the resources could be put to much better use.

The UK after WWII decided to have a welfare state, they elected Clement Atlee. The US went in the opposite direction, thank goodness. From Michael Barone:

"The Republican slogan was “Had enough?�—enough inflation, enough high taxes, enough price controls, enough coddling of unions with their frequent strikes and their entanglement with Communists. The Republicans promised to end controls, lower taxes, and restrict labor unions."

The Chicago Tribune called it the greatest GOP victory since Appomattox.

I don't know, how long have the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan been going on? How about the war on drugs for that matter? How about the Vietnam war or even WW2 for that matter? As Clauswitz said few plans survive first contact with the enemy. Since you love Reagan so much was he even still in office when the cold war ended? Sounds like it took more than six years to me. How long did it take us to get to the moon?

If I was talking about anything other than an economic program you might have a point. BTW, WWII took us 4 years.

I said no such thing, maybe you should read what I say instead of what you want me to say.

Completely wrong, I correctly claimed you said Reagan modelled SDI on the Manhatten Project because you said this "Another strange thing Reagan followed the FDR plan so faithfully that he even had his own version of the Manhatten project in the form of SDI".

Not at all, you simply refuse to admit that all government spending is still government spending. If Reagan was such an enemy of tax and spend why is it he freely engaged in that policy?

He was doing it for a legitimate constitional purpose, national defense, unlike Obama's failed porkulous bill.

So then as I said before by this version of logic you use you would have to declare FDR a genius on how he solved the problem of the great depression. Exactly what legitimate reason was there for increasing the navy to a 600 ship fleet? The soviet navy barely had a blue water fleet at all and even including coastal patrol boats had only a few hundred ships. Just because it's defense spending does not mean that it is automatically legitimate.

Admiral Wyvern, I wouldn't knock a successful plan. The Soviets realized they couldn't outspend us and gave up. This allowed later presidents like Clinton to greatly reduce defense spending.

So you are advocating unlimited immigration into our country in order to increase the number of taxpayers?

What a dumb idea. We need to give jobs to the millions of unemployed Americans, and change them from being government beneficiaries to taxpayers.

You are still left with two options to explain this doubling of tax receipts, the economy had to double or taxes did, which is it?

Again, the economy grew, the only way to get out of a recession.

Wait a minute, you said before that tax rceipts doubled, now you put the number at 8.2%. Even if this was the rate from the instant Reagan took office you are still looking at only a 65% increase which is only 2/3rds of the rate which you cited. I'm really starting to wonder where you are getting these claims.

You might want to study basic math before you look any sillier. A sum growing at 8.2% annually would double in 8 years.

And this again illuminates how questionable your claims are, you made the claim that tax receipts doubled which can only happen without tax increases if the economy also doubles but here your article from the cato institute states the economy increased by only a third. Please tell me the magic that allows taxes to double without tax increases or an equally expanded economy?

Interesting you think math is magic. See above.

[chris_brown207]

From my link:

Significant details must still be worked out before Congress can approve a bill. Among the groups denouncing the proposal today were the National Association of Home Builders and Congressional Democrats who fear that tighter regulation of the companies could sharply reduce their commitment to financing low-income and affordable housing.

''These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis,'' said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ''The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.''

Representative Melvin L. Watt, Democrat of North Carolina, agreed.

''I don't see much other than a shell game going on here, moving something from one agency to another and in the process weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing,'' Mr. Watt said.

Thank you for carefully avoiding the point of my statement, and providing more information that is obvious to anyone with a laptop and internet. Of course Barney Frank is going to side with the Housing Act, after all it was his baby in the first place. I did not realize that he was all powerful though, and that the Republican Party was impotent against him - even though they had the Top Office, Congress, and the Senate more then any Republican President had ever enjoyed going back to Calvin Coolidge. If they wanted to change it, they could have. Pointing the finger at the Democrats, who introduced and backed it, completely ignores the ample opportunities the Republicans had - throughout the Tenure of George Bush, and through much of Clinton's - when they did have control of Congress and the Senate - that they could have changed it had they truly wanted to.

The truth is the Republicans were drinking the same cool-aid everyone else was: "We can put light where there's darkness, and hope where there's despondency in this country. And part of it is working together as a nation to encourage folks to own their own home." - President George W. Bush, Oct. 15, 2002

It wasn't until 2007 that Greenspan would even acknowledge there was a Housing Bubble. You can't fix what you can't see is there. Matter of fact, he was quite scornful of even the idea of a bubble up to that point. It wasn't until the last year of Bush's presidency that true action was taken to try to rectify the situation, and of course by then the Titanic had already taken on too much water.

Like I said, no one wants to shut down the party, but everyone wants to point the fingers when the cops show up.

[Wyvern]

The UK after WWII decided to have a welfare state, they elected Clement Atlee. The US went in the opposite direction, thank goodness. From Michael Barone:

"The Republican slogan was “Had enough?�—enough inflation, enough high taxes, enough price controls, enough coddling of unions with their frequent strikes and their entanglement with Communists. The Republicans promised to end controls, lower taxes, and restrict labor unions."

The Chicago Tribune called it the greatest GOP victory since Appomattox.

What was this great victory you are talking about? You could at least mention what you are talking about before getting into self congratulatory mode.

I don't know, how long have the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan been going on? How about the war on drugs for that matter? How about the Vietnam war or even WW2 for that matter? As Clauswitz said few plans survive first contact with the enemy. Since you love Reagan so much was he even still in office when the cold war ended? Sounds like it took more than six years to me. How long did it take us to get to the moon?

If I was talking about anything other than an economic program you might have a point. BTW, WWII took us 4 years.

Ahh, shifting the goal posts i see. What is special about economic programs then that automatically makes them a failure after six years as opposed to any other program? Even though you think WW2 only took four years I assure you the rest of the world would give you a different figure.

I said no such thing, maybe you should read what I say instead of what you want me to say.

Completely wrong, I correctly claimed you said Reagan modelled SDI on the Manhatten Project because you said this "Another strange thing Reagan followed the FDR plan so faithfully that he even had his own version of the Manhatten project in the form of SDI".

Do you deny that SDI was a highly classified military research program? Modelling means something very different than saying he had a version of it.

Not at all, you simply refuse to admit that all government spending is still government spending. If Reagan was such an enemy of tax and spend why is it he freely engaged in that policy?

He was doing it for a legitimate constitional purpose, national defense, unlike Obama's failed porkulous bill.

And still you refuse to admit that all government spending regardless of the purpose is still government spending.

So then as I said before by this version of logic you use you would have to declare FDR a genius on how he solved the problem of the great depression. Exactly what legitimate reason was there for increasing the navy to a 600 ship fleet? The soviet navy barely had a blue water fleet at all and even including coastal patrol boats had only a few hundred ships. Just because it's defense spending does not mean that it is automatically legitimate.

Admiral Wyvern, I wouldn't knock a successful plan. The Soviets realized they couldn't outspend us and gave up. This allowed later presidents like Clinton to greatly reduce defense spending.

If it was such a successful plan why was it never carried out? Reagan wanted it but it never happened, not to mention how broken the soviet system was by the time Reagan got to office.

So you are advocating unlimited immigration into our country in order to increase the number of taxpayers?

What a dumb idea. We need to give jobs to the millions of unemployed Americans, and change them from being government beneficiaries to taxpayers.

Hey you're the one that said we need more taxpayers. Give jobs? How exactly are you going to give jobs in a free market system such as ours?

You are still left with two options to explain this doubling of tax receipts, the economy had to double or taxes did, which is it?

Again, the economy grew, the only way to get out of a recession.

But according to your numbers it did not double which would account for the doubling of tax receipts and even then only if the taxes remained constant which you say were drastically lowered. So now you are in a situation where for your claim to be correct the economy had to more than double in order to account for the increased tax receipts.

Wait a minute, you said before that tax rceipts doubled, now you put the number at 8.2%. Even if this was the rate from the instant Reagan took office you are still looking at only a 65% increase which is only 2/3rds of the rate which you cited. I'm really starting to wonder where you are getting these claims.

You might want to study basic math before you look any sillier. A sum growing at 8.2% annually would double in 8 years.

If we were talking about compound interest you would be correct but this is from an analysis after the fact merely giving an average not to mention since you claim taxes were lowered drastically at the same time tax receipts doubled you now need the economy to more than double to make your numbers match.

And this again illuminates how questionable your claims are, you made the claim that tax receipts doubled which can only happen without tax increases if the economy also doubles but here your article from the cato institute states the economy increased by only a third. Please tell me the magic that allows taxes to double without tax increases or an equally expanded economy?

Interesting you think math is magic. See above.

Yes exactly, see above. Please show this mathematically challenged individual the total growth of the economy along with the total growth of tax receipts along with the changes to total taxes during Reagans presidency.

[Goat]

Reagan did not have to deal with a recession that was as large in scale as the Great Depression, and if the current program is not achieving the success wished for, you can thank the Republican predecessor as much as you can thank the current president as much of the policies in place now to break the recession are just a continuation of Bush's policies.

Not only did the recession start happening under the Bush administration, the economy is a global economy these days, and it spread to other countries. It will be hard for any one country to emerge before the others are getting somewhat more healthy

[East of Eden]

What was this great victory you are talking about? You could at least mention what you are talking about before getting into self congratulatory mode.

Focus, we're talking about the post-war, 1946 elections in which the GOP picked up 55 seats.

Ahh, shifting the goal posts i see.

Sorry, you did when you switched from economic plans to wars.

What is special about economic programs then that automatically makes them a failure after six years as opposed to any other program?

Ask Obama, who said if he doesn't turn things around in three years he doesn't deserve to be re-elected. I agree with him.

Even though you think WW2 only took four years I assure you the rest of the world would give you a different figure.

Obviously, four years on our part. Please try to keep up.

And still you refuse to admit that all government spending regardless of the purpose is still government spending.

Some government spending is legitimate, some isn't.

If it was such a successful plan why was it never carried out?

The plan I refered to is the one Reagan won the Cold War with. If you mean SDI, it died for the same reason lots of good ideas die: Democratic opposition.

Reagan wanted it but it never happened, not to mention how broken the soviet system was by the time Reagan got to office.

So why didn't Carter win the Cold War? Not only did he not, but the Soviets invaded Afganistan on his watch, under Reagan they were retreating.

Hey you're the one that said we need more taxpayers. Give jobs? How exactly are you going to give jobs in a free market system such as ours?

I understand liberal Democrats don't know the answer to that question, but reducing taxes and regulation and increasing energy supplies are a good way to start.

But according to your numbers it did not double which would account for the doubling of tax receipts and even then only if the taxes remained constant which you say were drastically lowered. So now you are in a situation where for your claim to be correct the economy had to more than double in order to account for the increased tax receipts.

Do you not agree tax receipts doubled under Reagan while the top bracket dropped from 70% to 28%?

[East of Eden]

Not only did the recession start happening under the Bush administration,

So what? Reagan's economy started under Carter, and by this time in his presidency he was well on the way to fixing it.

the economy is a global economy these days, and it spread to other countries. It will be hard for any one country to emerge before the others are getting somewhat more healthy

Yes, much of Europe is farther down the tax and spend road than even we. See Greece.

Don't ask me to produce it, but I saw a poll that said if the 2008 election were held again today, Bush would win. He would get my vote again over the current clown in the WH.

[nursebenjamin]

Don't ask me to produce it, but I saw a poll that said if the 2008 election were held again today, Bush would win. He would get my vote again over the current clown in the WH.

Somehow, this wouldn't surprise me:
[center][youtube][/youtube][/center]

[Wyvern]

Focus, we're talking about the post-war, 1946 elections in which the GOP picked up 55 seats.

And what does the 1946 election have to do with eliminating depression era jobs programs which you said were eliminated in the early 1940's which is what you were previously talking about?

Ahh, shifting the goal posts i see.

Sorry, you did when you switched from economic plans to wars.

The quote you used did not specify economic plans you did afterwards which is known as shifting the goalposts. Plus of course was the lunar landing a war?

What is special about economic programs then that automatically makes them a failure after six years as opposed to any other program?

Ask Obama, who said if he doesn't turn things around in three years he doesn't deserve to be re-elected. I agree with him.

Well considering you wanted to get rid of him before he even took the oath this isn't very surprising. Also why is it you give Reagan eight years and you give FDR six but you are only willing to give Obama three? Plus of course it should be mentioned that even though it is a jobless recovery the recession ended a while back.

Even though you think WW2 only took four years I assure you the rest of the world would give you a different figure.

Obviously, four years on our part. Please try to keep up.

Yes and the world consists of more than the US not to mention you are ignoring Lend Lease and the convoy duties the navy was performing prior to our entrance in the war which only happened in Europe because Japan forced the Germans hand.

And still you refuse to admit that all government spending regardless of the purpose is still government spending.

Some government spending is legitimate, some isn't.

And it is still government spending, what don't you understand about this basic concept?

If it was such a successful plan why was it never carried out?

The plan I refered to is the one Reagan won the Cold War with. If you mean SDI, it died for the same reason lots of good ideas die: Democratic opposition.

As you like to say, focus his plan for a 600 ship navy was never carried out because the naval planners figured out they simply didn't have the facilities, manpower or money to operate so many ships. As far as SDI goes it never died, there was no democratic opposition, don't you remember a few years ago Russia complaiing that we wanted to install a missile shield in Poland and other former Warsaw Pact nations?

Reagan wanted it but it never happened, not to mention how broken the soviet system was by the time Reagan got to office.

So why didn't Carter win the Cold War? Not only did he not, but the Soviets invaded Afganistan on his watch, under Reagan they were retreating.

If you're going to go by that logic why didn't Nixon or Ford win it either? Oh yeah Afghanistan I remember that, guess what else got its start there during this period? That's right this is where Osama Bin Laden got his start along with the Taliban and it was all funded by Reagan. I guess Carter wasn't willing to break the law.

Hey you're the one that said we need more taxpayers. Give jobs? How exactly are you going to give jobs in a free market system such as ours?

I understand liberal Democrats don't know the answer to that question, but reducing taxes and regulation and increasing energy supplies are a good way to start.

Ok taxes are lower there is less regulation and vastly increased energy supplies than there were during Reagans term so why isn't any jobs being created?

But according to your numbers it did not double which would account for the doubling of tax receipts and even then only if the taxes remained constant which you say were drastically lowered. So now you are in a situation where for your claim to be correct the economy had to more than double in order to account for the increased tax receipts.

Do you not agree tax receipts doubled under Reagan while the top bracket dropped from 70% to 28%?

I'm taking your word for it now can you explain to me how tax receipts doubled when according to the very numbers you provided the economy did not double and on top of that according to you taxes actually decreased which means the economy had to more than double to make up the difference. You keep making these claims is it asking so much for you to provide the data that backs up these claims? Without you coming up with this simple I assume easily obtainable information I can just keep poking holes in your argument. I am giving you the opportunity to end this debate, all you have to do is come up with the facts to back up your claim.

[chris_brown207]

Do you not agree tax receipts doubled under Reagan while the top bracket dropped from 70% to 28%?

I am not sure where you get your information, but according to the CBO the effect of Reagan's tax changes was primarily a change in the composition of tax revenue, towards payroll and new investment, and away from higher earners and capital gains on existing investments. Federal revenue share of GDP declined from 19.6% in fiscal 1981 to 17.3% in 1984, before climbing back to 18.4% by fiscal 1989. Personal income tax revenues fell during this period relative to GDP, while payroll tax revenues rose relative to GDP. - http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/120xx/doc120 ... 5B1%5D.pdf

I would be interested to see where tax receipts doubled, but the net effect was actually a decline in tax revenue as a product of GDP under Reagan.