OT: US President (US Dom Players only)

[AdmiralZhao]

Wow.

So .. our competitors are in ruins; the democrats have more or less 40 years in power; and according to you they do an excellent job of managing the economy and world affairs.

Yet - if thats so how do our competitors, by 1980.. catch us? How does europe rebuild? How does Russia become a military power on par with us? You'd think that if the democrats did such a stellar job - there was no way anyone else could catch us.

Or is it in fact because perhaps in fact - that other nations - and not just one or two - but whole HOSTS of other nations.. exceeded us.

Yes, I too blame the Democrats for helping Europe rebuild after WWII. o_0

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by rdonj

Yes, that was my point. So, either the 38% who don't pay taxes and the 95% who would theoretically get a tax break are completely unrelated ideas, or perhaps you are saying that because 38% of people are not paying taxes it is impossible to give a tax cut to said 95% of taxpayers. Or is it something else entirely? I honestly can't tell, sorry.

Thank you for clarifying the birth certificate thing, I am satisfied with this answer.

Obama calls people tax payers that are not paying taxes, and in fact are welfare recipients.

Obamas own figures show that everyone earning under $226K a year gets a tax cut. This is where he gets the 95% figure.

My point - is that 38% of these people are not PAYING any taxes.
(48% after his plan)

So really it breaks out something like this:

Somewhat more than 38% of people will get money, when they pay nothing.
Something like 50% will get a tax decrease.
And something like 5% will get a huge increase.

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by lwarmonger

For the debate regarding fiscal policy and economics above, Slate isn't exactly something I would bring into a debate as a source... it's like me using the Bible to "prove" the Christian God exists. Not exactly unbiased.

If it was an opinion piece, I would accept the merit of your opinion.

However, since I am betting you did not even look at the article, I will clarify. The article uses statistics compiled from the economic report that the White House presents to the President himself, and Congress, every year. If you doubt the veracity of the analysis itself, simply because you consider the source biased - then I would offer to confirm the results. But since I am sure you would consider me biased at this point (yes, I am biased towards truth, rather than denial), then maybe you should follow the link the the government webpage that will allow you to directly download the entire report, in PDF format.

Originally Posted by lwarmonger

Oh, and the last Democratic President to increase the deficit was Bill Clinton. The one before that was Jimmy Carter.

Do you honestly believe that? How on Earth can you state something like that as fact? The Federal government clearly disagrees on your assertion that deficit increased under Clinton. In fact, by their records, he showed the only budget surplus since 1969 (2001 was still in surplus, but the year a President takes office, is not their budget).

[Aezeal]

Somewhat more than 38% of people will get money, when they pay nothing.
Something like 50% will get a tax decrease.
And something like 5% will get a huge increase.

what can I say... sounds good?

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by AdmiralZhao

Wow.

Yes, I too blame the Democrats for helping Europe rebuild after WWII. o_0

Lets make it simple:

1. The USA was the only world power to escape WWII with its economy intact.
2. The democrats retained power for significantly all of the 40 year period.
3. The democrats did a world class job of managing the economy.

One of those things has to be false. Because if it were true, the US would still have an equally dominant economy.

I believe the statistics show that after wwii, the gnp of the american economy exceeded all other powers involved in the war - combined. In fact, the GNP of the American economy is more than 50% of the GNP of the rest of the world combined.

It certainly wasn't true after 40 years of democratic rule.

So Jims assertion that the democrats do (did) an outstanding job of managing the economy fails on its face.

But if you need a link, here is a comparison of US growth rates to japanese growth rates post wwii:

http://books.google.com/books?id=5aE...esult#PPA45,M1

Here you see similiar statistics for france, italy and spain
ie., that they are narrowing the per person gdp all through the 1960s and 1970s... IE., that the the democrats did not do an outstanding job.. indeed - they did worse than the managers of four countries.

http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/181

In fact, if you examine the data further, they did worse than the managers of virtually *all* those world powers over the same period.

[lch]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

No, actually his birth certificate is *not* available. He refused to make it available. He had a copy of a birth certificate posted on his website for a few days; it was rumored to be that of his half sister.

Point is - no he never submitted a birth certificate to the courts. Takes all of ... 5 minutes right?

Obama's campaign released his birth certificate on June 13, 2008 and launched a fact-check Web site named Fightthesmears.com in response to allegations that he doesn't have a valid birth certificate, and in response to allegations that he would be muslim (which isn't true as well). The state's Department of Health director of Hawai‘i released a statement verifying the legitimacy of Sen. Barack Obama birth certificate.

It takes me less than a minute to look up these things in Google and debunk your stories, again and again, I wonder why you don't manage to do that yourself. Again, conspiracy sites and attack sites are hardly the right source of information. If you'd make a minimal effort to check the facts yourself you wouldn't have to make such a poor impression here.

[JimMorrison]

I don't think that I stated anyone did an excellent (or stellar) job of anything. However, the statistics compiled by our own government show with clear numbers, that averaging out each year under a Democratic President there was a trend of better performance in every economic indicator, than there was under a Republican President.

Some of the statistics in the report (compiled by our government! I can't stress this enough) do start in the 40's, and some start in the 50's. I believe the reason to do the table of statistics as they were done in the article, was to only use data beginning in years when data in all areas was available


The Democrats have not "been in power" for the last 40 years, that is patently false. How can you even make such a claim, when the directly observable trends in areas of economy, society, and bureaucracy swing in VERY different directions when there is a Republican President in the White House (as there has been for 20 of the last 28 years, for example).

In fact, according to all indicators, as tracked by our own government, perhaps you could postulate that Democrats haven't done a "stellar" job with the economy, but it is also glaringly obvious from these figures that the Republicans did substantially, and reliably worse (f not horribly so).


I hardly see what deficit figures near 100% of the annual tax incomes for the last 3 years of WWII has to do with anything? The entire world was under rather unique economic stresses at the time, and we came through it the best that we could.

Let me give you an interesting bit of information, while we are on the subject of taxation, spending, deficit, and the relative performance of Presidents of different parties.....

This is the % increase in our national debt, over the period of a particular President's time in office (first 2 lumped because JFK wasn't around long enough, nor Ford....) -

JFK+LBJ = 28.24%
Nixon+Ford = 70.6%
Carter = 44.51% (I'll agree, this one is bad enough)
Reagan = 186.14% (makes Carter look like a financial GENIUS)
Bush Sr= 53.85% (worse in 4 years than even Carter as well)
Clinton = 40.65%
Bush Jr = 71.52%

So you see, according to our own internal bookkeeping, every Democrat has performed better in terms of the relative balance of revenue/spending than the Republican that followed them.


And yet, still, these numbers are embarassing. Neither party should consistently see debt growth on such a ridiculous scale. My argument the entire time was that what we truly need is a new paradigm altogether, and a new system whereby we can have a functioning economy, AND a functioning social infrastructure. While both are inarguably dysfunctional in American today (and have been for decades), there is a measurable difference, in all available benchmarking, that favors Democrats in nearly all statistical categories that we can look at.

So to reiterate - I do not think that any Democrat, Obama included, is the real answer we are looking for. But at the same time, it is ridiculous to claim that a Democrat will be worse than a Republican (in general terms), based on party affiliation, for any purpose other than your anger at having your income potential hampered, as one of those top 5% earners in the nation. If you're in the other 95%, and most of us are, then you are being completely deceived into your vote, and that is a statistically corroborated fact, because a Republican will do far more harm to you than a Democrat will.

<3

[HoneyBadger]

And it looks like Obama for the win! YAY!

[Humakty]

Yay, Obama won, it's the democrat's turn to wreck occidental economy ! Just kidding guys, don't get the guns out.By the way, I really hope BO won't get shot out.
Giving my stranger 'point de vue' : I hope he really is the change motor USA needs today to stay world leaders, chinese scare me a bit. As he is from Yale, I'm afraid he'll be just as other USA politicians : lobby rules, poor gets poorer (I'm talking of USA poor !)...etc

[Edratman]

I am relieved that Obama won.

But it sad that I am merely relieved. I think that we have so many problems that I admit to great fears that many of them will/can not be overcome. But at least there is a modicum of hope.