What does this have to do w/ “the maverick?” At this point in time, I would literally vote for a feces throwing monkey, as long as it wasn’t stamped w/ the elephant, and wasn’t throwing feces at me.
There’s always something to howl about.
What does this have to do w/ “the maverick?” At this point in time, I would literally vote for a feces throwing monkey, as long as it wasn’t stamped w/ the elephant, and wasn’t throwing feces at me.
Arlington real estate says:
Eric, the graphic for this in technical terms is great. Did you use excel for that?
I would redo this post, Eric. Instead of throwing up a bunch of negative spaghetti against a Bush wall and seeing what sticks, go through your list and pick out what 1) you think is Bush’s fault and criteria 2) of any importance and then the post will be taken more seriously.
For example, the price of gas. Is it Bush’s fault that during his presidency India and China have brought about huge increases in demand the past few years that did not exist in 2001 and previous? Is it Bush’s fault that Dems you want to vote for have been against increased drilling and oil production and blocking attempts for years with the lame ass excuse that it will not make a difference for 10 years?
Of course not. So why “throw it up”, Eric. This post has potential to be taken more seriously if you go back through your mockup and be a bit more selective about the rows so you don’t appear to be some ignorant idealist who is just young or something.
And then with the streamlined mockup as we look at the rows we can differentiate between correlation, cause and effect and larger #s on some rows attributable perhaps even to just a larger population in the US versus 15 years ago before we jump to hasty conclusions.
Looking forward to the new and improved version, Eric.
Either way, it’s a good thing Bush isn’t running for reelection because I’m pretty sure no conservatives or libertarians or combos thereof want to reelect him.
October 18, 2008 — 12:45 pm
Eric Blackwell says:
Here’s one of the ONLY times you are gonna see the Eric’s disagree.
The problems that I have with the last 8 years (regardless of party) have been caused by too much government and not too little. FNMA and Freddie Mac are GSEs (quasi government entities). If they were in the market and responsible to it, do you think we’d have ended up here?
I think either of the choices this time around leave us with HUGE spending and HUGE loss of freedom.
I will vote for the one who wants to do the least to take my freedom away and who wants to least tax the people who are making the amount of money I want to make in four years. Most importantly, the one who wants to reduce government and its control the most.
Nice thing is…we live in a country where we are all free to say exactly what we think. For two years I lived in a country where that was limited. Something to appreciate, IMO.
Best;
Eric
October 18, 2008 — 1:07 pm
Eric Bramlett says:
I linked to the original source, Jay. I also agree that there are items on there beyond the republican president & congress’ control, but again, I didn’t create it.
How ’bout that deficit, though? Sure shows how fiscally responsible the republican congress & president were for 2001-2006.
October 18, 2008 — 1:40 pm
Eric Bramlett says:
And I’ll reiterate. Ideologically, I agree with the republican fiscal views. In practice, Republicans are as fiscally irresponsible as it gets. Gimme the 1998 congress any day – before the bastards were corrupted.
Great – then don’t for McCain, either. He voted in line with Bush 95% of the time last year. Voting for McCain is extending Bush policy.
Like I said. I’ll vote for a crap throwing monkey, as long is it’s not associated with Bush.
October 18, 2008 — 1:42 pm
Eric Bramlett says:
So Jay – if you call ABC Plumbing to fix your sink and they send a guy out who overcharges you, breaks your toilet, and knocks your daughter up, do you call ABC Plumbing back and ask them to send out a different guy to fix the toilet?
October 18, 2008 — 2:21 pm
Robert Kerr says:
Applause.
Superb, Eric, superb.
October 18, 2008 — 3:30 pm
Bob says:
The irony of this is that if I said I wouldn’t vote for a crap throwing monkey, I would be labeled a monkey.
Politics is way to complicated to be boiled down into one post.
Now, talk about getting rid of the Electoral College and we could have an interesting and intelligent discussion.
October 18, 2008 — 8:19 pm
Bob says:
should have read, “I would be labeled a racist”
Time to call it a day.
October 18, 2008 — 8:20 pm
Dan Melson says:
Here’s the thing that chaps my hide:
I went back to the source of the link – and he didn’t give the source of the figures, either. If I can’t find the source, can’t validate the data, I have no information on whether the figures are valid. These could well be Dave Barry style figures (Dave Barry always claims he’s not making up stuff that he is).
Furthermore, even if true, a lot of it is less good because of the changes in the world since January 20th 2001. Bill Clinton spent 8 years pretending that Al Qaeda was not a threat – despite World Trade Bombing, Despite the USS Cole, Despite the embassy bombings, despite this that and the other. George Bush decided to take action.
I also find the selections of specific country favorable ratings to be cherry picking. In 2001, France had a socialist president – now Sarkozy is an unabashed fan of the US. Ditto Andrea Merkel in Germany – they hate us so much, they elected an American-lover – and Silvio Berlusconi in Italy. Turkey, for it’s part, has been losing an internal political war against Islamists. Indonesia is an Islamic (and largely Islamist) State. South Korea and Japan were talking about pulling our basing agreements in 2001 – they’re not talking about that any longer. India is friendlier than at any time in the last fifty years.
And as for combat readiness: Ask the milbloggers whether the real military state of competence has increased or decreased since 2001. It’s easy to say you’re all ready when it’s just a political and career-advancing football and nobody is expecting us to be in a shooting war. Now that there are bullets flying, things are different in the service.
I can counter pretty much every figure on the list with good reasons why the world was much harder for Bush than it was for Clinton. But here’s one: What’s the aggregate unemployment of the Clinton years versus the Bush years? Hint: Except for the last couple of months, it’s not even close.
But until someone supplies the provenance of the figures, it’s all wasted pixels because the base data has not been verified.
October 18, 2008 — 8:53 pm
Greg Swann says:
> Now, talk about getting rid of the Electoral College and we could have an interesting and intelligent discussion.
The Federalist idea was a valuable one. If you want to regain control of the federal government, repealing the 17th Amendment is a good place to start.
October 18, 2008 — 9:21 pm
Bob says:
No argument from me on the mistake that is the 17th amendment. With the exception of the 19th amendment, the Progressives caused more than their fair share of harm with the legislation they pushed through.
October 18, 2008 — 9:36 pm
Arlington real estate says:
eric, I’m in agreement on deficits and spending. I do think 9/11 and war distorted figures but the President’s lack of leadership with the veto pen and trying to raise public outcry against earmarks/pork was unbearable….
I can’t imagine the other side being any better though as they tend to be the party of social engineering programs which leads to the some of the biggest spending of all.
I don’t think McCain or Obama would be effective against spending either, unless some conservative/libertarians were running congress. So called Blue Dogs Dems probably haven’t done anything but vote the party line on spending either, but that is an assumption I have not checked out–like some of the figures in the graph I’d like to know more about.
I remember when Schneider in the 80s went around raising outrage over 2,000,000 homeless and it was reported as fact by all media for a long time. later figures and studies showed the problem to be about 200,000 at the time, but Schneider really deceived some people for a long time on that issue by stating it as fact.
October 19, 2008 — 5:40 am
Chris says:
I’m voting Libertarian, screw the demopublicans. Its time for some real change, I wish more people would stop voting for these two parties.
October 19, 2008 — 7:03 am
Eric Bramlett says:
So what I’m hearing from you guys is that the figures are so shocking that you believe they could easily have been falsified.
Rather than just assume that the figures are accurate or not, I spent less than 2 minutes online and found the original source of the material. It was a bit of a giveaway that eatliver.com wasn’t the original creator, since the image had hotlinks that weren’t live.
So…here you go. http://tinyurl.com/28hgau Everything is neatly sourced.
A patently false assumption. http://perotcharts.com/images/challenges/challenges01.png Reagan & HW Bush increased spending at a much steeper rate than Carter. Clinton increased spending at roughly the same rate as Reagan/HW. GW Bush increased spending at almost TWICE the rate of increase of Clinton.
Here’s another good chart to chew on.
The claim that “yes the republicans are bad, but the dem’s would be much worse,” is NOT backed up by historical data.
Bob, I agree with you 150%. The title of the post was meant to poke a little fun at Greg’s original “essence of wit” post.
However, I think that if we all discussed the electoral college, line item vetoes, a balanced budget, and tax reform, it be a rather short discussion. I get the feeling that there wouldn’t be much disagreement here.
October 19, 2008 — 8:30 am
Dan Melson says:
Okay, so you posted Democratic Party talking points (the link goes to http://www.dems.gov – Gee, I wonder why you didn’t link the original in the first place)
Furthermore, the bibliography is rather insufficient. Yeah, most of those reports are neutral – but there is more than one reading on the given figure in every single one of them. A good bibliography gives references to the original figures *IN CONTEXT*, so that everyone can see and agree that it’s an apples to apples comparison. Given the limited nature of the sourcing and the dubious neutrality of the compiler (one of the cited items is a politically directed “factsheet” from one of their own officeholders)
Cost of College, Cost of Health Care, Price of Gas, Personal Savings Rate, Consumer Credit Debt, Strength of Dollar, Foreign Oil Dependency: None of these are under the President’s control (Indeed, George Bush has *removed* the only executive level control on the last – you may remember the day the speculative oil bubble popped last summer?). If I were to blame President Obama for any of these four years from now, you would be correct to refute me.
Furthermore, you may remember the fact that the stock market bubble broke the last few months of Clinton’s Presidency, and the results took until 1st quarter 2003 to work their way out of the economy (The problem: Clinton’s SEC director deregulated the “no advice and no responsibility – caveat emptor” side of the industry), and would have taken much longer had George Bush not sponsored tax cuts at the first possible moment. Clinton could have done it, also – it was the economically sound thing to have done – but didn’t want to expend political capital on a crisis that wouldn’t peak until he was out of office.
(If you were evaluating two employees performance, it might be kind of relevant to the situation that one dealt with all the crises that came to him and tried to proactively solve the ones he could see coming, while the other sat on his hands as much as possible, reacted only when it became obvious he was going to have to, and papered over the problems to make it appear things were okay)
Basically, you’ve fallen for quite a straw man, and went on to push it on your readers as if valid.
October 19, 2008 — 9:53 am
John Sabia says:
Agree 100%. But give Bill credit, he set it up perfectly for Hillary to run later – he just didn’t plan on Obama.
October 19, 2008 — 10:18 am
Eric Bramlett says:
Dan, I read those points about two weeks ago, and to refind them, I googled “US before after bush”. You’ll see the eatliver link @ #1, and won’t find the dem site on the first page of the SERP. Before you attack my character or motivation, you might want to read a little bit more of what I write. I care only about the facts.
Can you please source this? The NY Times has a different take on how everything went down. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/30/national/30TERR.html?ex=1224561600&en=fed4f53e0db7fca5&ei=5070
If you mean that “Bush took action AFTER the towers fell,” then I do agree with you. But please include the caveat that he did NOTHING before the towers fell, even though he was repeatedly warned about Al Qaeda.
October 19, 2008 — 10:28 am
Bob says:
No. It is simply that they don’t paint an accurate picture of anything. The Founding Fathers brilliantly set it up in a way that one branch could not lead with willful disregard to the other two. Therefor you can’t blame a President without blaming the Congress.
I wrote that because most people tend to argue politics within the confines of party affiliation. The problem that creates is that the self-imposed confines of party rhetoric doesn’t allow for a logical or accurate way to look at things.
For instance, Bush 41 referred to Reagonomics as Voodoo Economics, and deviated from Reaganomics once elected. However, Clinton’s policies were more of a continuation of what Reagan started, and it worked with the support and/or pressure of the Gingrich led Congress. Neither party will admit that, although more than a few conservative economists have.
What history does tell us is that, more often than not, less government happens when one party doesn’t control both the legislative and executive branches at the same time. One example is NAFTA – which Clinton pushed thru with Republican against many Dem objections.
That didn’t happen this time though, as witnessed by the many anti-free trade measures under ‘W’ and the fact that ‘W’ was the first republican president to preside over the creation of an entitlement – prescription drugs. That is why blatant Bush bashing when the Congress is controlled by the other party is an indictment on that party as well.
This morning Stephanopoulos had a roundtable with George Will, Donna Brazile, David Gergen, Thomas Friedman and Newt Gingrich. 4 of the 5 guests are able to have an intelligent discussion without sounding like campaign managers.
Interesting points included one that links Obama’s future success as President directly to how well he handles Palosi and Reid. If Obama pulls a Clinton and goes to the middle, he’ll have two terms. If he allows Palosi and Reid to cash their IOUs at full face value, 2010 midterm elections will be a bloodbath for the Democrats and charts like the one above will look even worse.
While Obama is a statist, what has impressed me is his intelligence and apparent calmness. Whether that translates to a willingness to adapt his policies ala Bill Clinton, or a resolute march toward implementing his ideas of wealth redistribution, is the question for me.
Since I’m in California, my vote has no real impact, as the state’s electoral votes will go to Obama. As a result, I will write in Ron Paul as a statement that few will hear. At least I won’t have to walk out of the booth and apologize for the lesser of two evils, and in a strange nod to Al Gore, I can claim that I’ve been disenfranchised.
October 19, 2008 — 11:14 am
Eric Bramlett says:
Thank you, Bob. That was a very intelligent, non-partisan response.
The point I attempted to make by re-posting these numbers wasn’t a condemnation of W, but rather a look at what 6 years of failed Rpolicy introduced by a Republican congress, and ratified by a Republican president, led to.
I think that’s a very accurate assessment. I hope & believe that Obama will do just this.
October 19, 2008 — 11:25 am
Bob says:
You’ll see a repeat of that anytime you have one party in control of those two branches.
I don’t. The reason being that Clinton was never committed to an idealogy the way Obama and Hillary are.
October 19, 2008 — 11:50 am
Arlington real estate says:
Congress makes the budget, Eric. In the 80s even though tax revenues to the government skyrocketed with lower taxes the democratic congress set the budgets.
In the 90s Clinton had the benefit of a R controlled house of rep if I recall which was more rightward leaning w/ Gingrich. So you’re sort of making a case against yourself by showing the fiscal irresponsibility of democratically controlled congresses it seems.
And yes Bush and the most recent R congress was as bad as some D congresses previously. But don’t pin deficits on the R presidents who had a D congress attached to them making the budgets and don’t pin fiscal responsibility on a D President who had a more conservative R congress keeping him in line. Be objective about the matter.
October 19, 2008 — 11:54 am
Eric Bramlett says:
We’re talking in circles, so I’m done after this. Jay, you oversimplify things when it’s convenient for your argument. Case in point:
Which is oversimplified to the point of being incorrect. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_budget_process
The budget process is a collaborative effort between the executive & legislative branches. I will happily acknowledge that the balanced budget under the “contract with America” was due to a Republican congress & Democratic president working together.
That’s really the only argument that persuades me to consider McCain.
And since I’m in TX, my vote is equally as worthless.
October 19, 2008 — 12:07 pm
Dan Melson says:
If you want to talk 9/11
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110004956
The Commissioner belongs in the witness chair.
and
Read the entire article. If you want to run Jamie Gorelick Wall through your favorite search engine, you’ll come across a lot more information on why law enforcement was unable to do its job. This idiot prevented law enforcement from saving 3000 American lives and somewhere over a trillion dollars in direct economic fallout from 9/11 because she didn’t want the appearance of the FBI and CIA sharing more information than the law allowed creating PR trouble for the Clinton administration.
(She didn’t exactly benefit us in the financial crisis, either – you can run her name and Fannie Mae for more information about that)
October 19, 2008 — 1:56 pm
Robert Kerr says:
Arlington Real Estate: I do think 9/11 and war distorted figures
The entire cost of the Iraq War is “off the books.” So that’s another $3T. That’s right, it’s even worse than the staggering $10T debt that’s generally reported.
October 19, 2008 — 6:14 pm
Robert Kerr says:
The Founding Fathers brilliantly set it up in a way that one branch could not lead with willful disregard to the other two. Therefor you can’t blame a President without blaming the Congress.
The Republicans had full control of the Executive and both chambers of Congress for 2001 through 2007. Six continuous years. Six insanely reckless budgets.
They took us from a $300B surplus to a $500B deficit. From a $5.7T debt to a $13T debt. From 4% unemployment to 6% – and growing rapidly.
The Democrats still don’t have a majority in the Senate – it’s 49-49-2 with Cheney the tiebreaker – and have only voted on 1 budget.
There’s just no credible way to pin this economic catastrophe on the Democrats.
October 19, 2008 — 6:28 pm
David Shafer says:
Some more interesting charts:
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2008/09/notes-to-self-f.html
October 20, 2008 — 8:55 am
Joe Lane says:
Hey Eric, Nice post! Maybe Bush’s administration is at fault, however, the Republican party shouldn’t be to blame. I wrote a blog entry over at ActiveRain a few days ago regarding Obama’s socialist bent. Pay particular attention to the part titled, "Senator Obama’s Voting Record" I’m not sure Obama’s the answer to the Bush legacy.
October 20, 2008 — 1:40 pm
Doug Quance says:
All this talk about Clinton surpluses is rather annoying. Clinton was dragged kicking and screaming to cut the budget… and even then, it didn’t balance.
Look at the national debt. Show us where the debt ever went down… ’cause that’s what happens when you have a surplus that you don’t blow.
http://www.letxa.com/articles/16
We can trace our financial problems to wasteful spending and social engineering.
October 20, 2008 — 2:00 pm
Eric Bramlett says:
I’m done arguing here. I’ll only point out a glaringly inaccurate statement (or implication) of fact when I see it.
http://perotcharts.com/2008/05/the-growing-national-debt-combined-1968-2007
October 20, 2008 — 2:06 pm
Doug Quance says:
Well if the government’s own figures aren’t good enough… I don’t know what to tell you. 😆
October 20, 2008 — 2:16 pm
Doug Quance says:
The calculator is better than a chart… be sure to use the fiscal year ending in September:
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np
October 20, 2008 — 2:21 pm
Eric Bramlett says:
Plug in the numbers:
Jan 1, 2000 to Dec 31, 2000.
Returns:
12/29/1999 = $5.776tt
12/29/2000 = $5.662tt
$114bb reduction
October 20, 2008 — 2:30 pm
Doug Quance says:
Sorry Eric… you can’t cherry pick dates. Use the fiscal years then get back to us.
For example:
Sep 30 1999 = $5,656,270,901,633.43
Sep 30 2000 = $5,674,178,209,886.86
or Cinton’s last budget:
Sep 30 2000 = $5,674,178,209,886.86
Sep 30 2001 = $5,807,463,412,200.06
You see? No surplus.
October 20, 2008 — 3:15 pm
Glenn fm Naples says:
Eric – I liked the analysis – however, I wish this election was over already, so that we as a country can move forward.
Both parties are slinging mud all the place and many of the promises being made by both parties lack sufficient detail.
Unfortunately, our country is not unified and truly lacks confidence in its politicians to improve the current climate.
The extremes of both parties are divisive, we need to move more to the middle.
October 20, 2008 — 3:52 pm
Joe Lane says:
Has anyone seen this: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122420205889842989.html?mod=rss_opinion_main
Regarding “just getting it over,” whether Republican or Democrat, our country will not do well with a supermajority. Read the Wall Street Journal article for further info on this. 😉
October 20, 2008 — 4:58 pm
Joe Hayden says:
I almost hate to jump into this one as the original post cherry-picked financial reporting and indicators, and then somehow concludes that all of it was Bush’s fault. A little sophomoric, but it is what it is…
I think everyone should take a moment to peruse the GAO’s website and especially read, and I mean very carefully read, one of these reports they frequently use as lectures.
The problem isn’t one of George Bush vs. (insert favorite love-to-hate Democrat president). It isn’t one of Republican vs. Democrat. It isn’t one of Conservative vs. Liberal. The problem revolves clearly around a core debt-based financial system that allows and encourages wild, out-of-control spending, unchecked social programs and entitlements, massive waste, and turns its back on the very citizens it is supposed to bolster.
Simply put, you could cancel every single government program, shut down the military, close all three branches of government, and you would still have a huge amount of debt that would grow and eventually consume all public wealth.
It’s the magic of compound interest, interest owed due to the fact we decided years ago to monetize our debt through the issuance of government-backed securities…
As long as you are stuck on Bush, or think Obama will wave a wand and make all of this go away, you are sadly mistaken. Only when America wakes up, votes the entrenched, bought-and-paid-for politicians out of office and demands genuine reform will any of this change. For now, expect it to get much, much worse…
PS Where are all of the surveys that show what Americans think of Germany, Turkey, and Indonesia? Shouldn’t they be included for comparison?
October 20, 2008 — 8:25 pm
Joe Lane says:
@Joe Hayden, You’re right on! Too bad there isn’t an Independent available that wouldn’t split the voter’s party preference.
Our financial system is ready to implode on itself. I wrote a blog entry a while back about this, and cited Mike Adams as a reference. Mike can be extreme, but he documents our country’s financial collapse. You can read about it here. Look for the anchor text "The Coming Financial Collapse Of America" within the text for Mike’s article.
October 20, 2008 — 9:38 pm
Joe Hayden says:
@Joe Lane – No Independent will rise into a competitive position on any stage until the FEC, the Commission on Presidential Debates, and the national media allow such an occurrence. The public is largely blind to this, much to its peril, but I heard the Red Sox lost!
The amount of control we have turned over to people who do not grant our freedoms basic respect and honor is staggering. Almost without surprise we are about to further damage any chance of America recovering from this economic, social, political, etc., etc., etc., debacle by going to the polls and again giving the power to compel us against our will at gunpoint to hand over our money and our morals to those whose first and only interest is the preservation of power.
This certainly cannot repeat itself much longer…
October 20, 2008 — 11:08 pm
Joe Lane says:
I cannot agree more Joe H. When you say "turn over control," check Obama’s voting record here. According to that website’s calculation, we’re going to be losing a ton of control as Obama legislates us into socialism. His presidency (yup, he’s gonna win), complete with a congressional super majority, and Bush’s fiscal record presented at the beginning of the blog entry, will pale in comparison to what lies ahead. Sadly, Obama will inherit a country at it’s worst economic position in history (perhaps rivaling the depression), and as the economy has absolutely no where to go but up, Obama will get the credit and the media will grovel over each other to give it to him.
October 21, 2008 — 8:10 am