[xerxes]

GW cut lots of taxes and did a lot of the things from the GOP's conservative playbook and loot at what happened.

Tax cuts are not a panacea for every ailment an economy has. They won't make credit start flowing again, they won't give people their jobs back in a year, they don't make heath insurance premiums any cheaper, among other things.

On another note, here's a good quote on CPAC:

"Do they really believe politics is dogmatic religion? They must. And if so, they're hopeless. Can you imagine going to such a liberal gathering in 1985, after Fritz Mondale had his head handed to him by Ronald Reagan, and listening to the de facto leader of US liberalism talking this way, saying that, "LIberalism is what it is and it is forever. It's not something you can bend and shape and flake and form"? If you were a conservative, you would have chortled and taken comfort in the evidence that the opposition was going to be spending a lot more time in the woods before the light of reality dawned upon their furrowed faces," - Rod Dreher, responding to CPAC.

[Scape]

I thought his little 'terrorist fist bumps' at the end of the speech were funny.

[xerxes]

And here's some good analysis from David "axis-of-evil" Frum of all people:

$1:

President Obama and Rush Limbaugh do not agree on much, but they share at least one thing: Both wish to see Rush anointed as the leader of the Republican party. Here’s Rahm Emanuel on Face the Nation yesterday: “the voice and the intellectual force and energy behind the Republican party.”

What a great endorsement for Rush! (And we know Rush is fond of compliments – listen to his loving account in his CPAC speech of the birthday lunch given him by President Bush just before Inauguration Day.)

But what about the rest of the party? Here’s the duel that Obama and Limbaugh are jointly arranging:

On the one side, the president of the United States: soft-spoken and conciliatory, never angry, always invoking the recession and its victims. This president invokes the language of “responsibility,” and in his own life seems to epitomize that ideal: He is physically honed and disciplined, his worst vice an occasional cigarette. He is at the same time an apparently devoted husband and father. Unsurprisingly, women voters trust and admire him.

And for the leader of the Republicans? A man who is aggressive and bombastic, cutting and sarcastic, who dismisses the concerned citizens in network news focus groups as “losers.” With his private plane and his cigars, his history of drug dependency and his personal bulk, not to mention his tangled marital history, Rush is a walking stereotype of self-indulgence – exactly the image that Barack Obama most wants to affix to our philosophy and our party. And we’re cooperating! Those images of crowds of CPACers cheering Rush’s every rancorous word – we’ll be seeing them rebroadcast for a long time.

Rush knows what he is doing. The worse conservatives do, the more important Rush becomes as leader of the ardent remnant. The better conservatives succeed, the more we become a broad national governing coalition, the more Rush will be sidelined.

But do the rest of us understand what we are doing to ourselves by accepting this leadership? Rush is to the Republicanism of the 2000s what Jesse Jackson was to the Democratic party in the 1980s. He plays an important role in our coalition, and of course he and his supporters have to be treated with respect. But he cannot be allowed to be the public face of the enterprise – and we have to find ways of assuring the public that he is just one Republican voice among many, and very far from the most important.

http://newmajority.com/ShowScroll.aspx?ID=d22fe4c9-6f8c-4c0d-93af-aed79ad3b467

[romanP]

tritium tritium:

Cut taxes.

Taxes have already been cut and cut and cut some more for the past eight years. That is why America has a massive government deficit. If you spend yourself into oblivion and don't raise money to pay for all of that, you end up with massive debt.

The USA will indeed go the way the of the USSR, when they have to depend overwhelmingly on foreign debt to pay for their extravagances. When you don't pay your dues, collectors will eventually come knocking.

$1:

The recession of the 1980, President Reagan cut taxes bring the U.S. out of the recession. It worked.

This isn't 1980.

[Proculation]

romanP romanP:

Taxes have already been cut and cut and cut some more for the past eight years. That is why America has a massive government deficit. If you spend yourself into oblivion and don't raise money to pay for all of that, you end up with massive debt.

I think the problem is more the unlimited spending than the tax cuts.

[Axeman]

tritium tritium:

Cut taxes.

The recession of the 1980, President Reagan cut taxes bring the U.S. out of the recession. It worked.

Well time will tell if Obama's plan works or sends the U.S. economy into a tail spin.

Explain to me how and when "it worked"?

[romanP]

Proculation Proculation:

romanP romanP:

Taxes have already been cut and cut and cut some more for the past eight years. That is why America has a massive government deficit. If you spend yourself into oblivion and don't raise money to pay for all of that, you end up with massive debt.

I think the problem is more the unlimited spending than the tax cuts.

They go hand in hand. If you spend and don't raise money, you end up with a huge pile of debt and no way out. Larry O'Brien, the current mayor of Ottawa, thought he could get away with the same thing, and it has led to us having to consider cutting out parts of this city that are essential to its functioning in a sane manner, and even to actually shutting down the entire transit system for two months, which cost businesses hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue in the end.

Massive spending without raising taxes is not a sane way to run a government.

[Proculation]

romanP romanP:

Proculation Proculation:

romanP romanP:

Taxes have already been cut and cut and cut some more for the past eight years. That is why America has a massive government deficit. If you spend yourself into oblivion and don't raise money to pay for all of that, you end up with massive debt.

I think the problem is more the unlimited spending than the tax cuts.

They go hand in hand. If you spend and don't raise money, you end up with a huge pile of debt and no way out. Larry O'Brien, the current mayor of Ottawa, thought he could get away with the same thing, and it has led to us having to consider cutting out parts of this city that are essential to its functioning in a sane manner, and even to actually shutting down the entire transit system for two months, which cost businesses hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue in the end.

Massive spending without raising taxes is not a sane way to run a government.

Sure they go hand in hand.
But it depends how you see things. If they were not spending so much money, they would not be in a trillion dollars deficit. Giving money to people should always be a priority, not taxing them to increase spending.

[sandorski]

Limbaugh is a loud mouthed Idiot. If the Republicans flock behind him, they'll cease being a Political party altogether. Which is why I hope they do so.

[romanP]

Proculation Proculation:

romanP romanP:

They go hand in hand. If you spend and don't raise money, you end up with a huge pile of debt and no way out. Larry O'Brien, the current mayor of Ottawa, thought he could get away with the same thing, and it has led to us having to consider cutting out parts of this city that are essential to its functioning in a sane manner, and even to actually shutting down the entire transit system for two months, which cost businesses hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue in the end.

Massive spending without raising taxes is not a sane way to run a government.

Sure they go hand in hand.
But it depends how you see things. If they were not spending so much money, they would not be in a trillion dollars deficit. Giving money to people should always be a priority, not taxing them to increase spending.

Yes, they should not have spent so much in the first place, considering most of that money was being shovelled into an unnecessary war. But they did, and now this is what they have.

[Axeman]

romanP romanP:

Yes, they should not have spent so much in the first place, considering most of that money was being shovelled into an unnecessary war. But they did, and now this is what they have.

Not a great deal unlike the spending "plan" that brought about the collapse of the Soviet Union.

[romanP]

sandorski sandorski:

Limbaugh is a loud mouthed Idiot. If the Republicans flock behind him, they'll cease being a Political party altogether. Which is why I hope they do so.

If America is to have a bright political future, I would wish for the opposite, that they would see the error of their ways before it is too late. Political diversity in American federal politics is already in a very sorry state.

[ManifestDestiny]

Rush's speech was dead on. He speaks for me and millions of conservatives. We are tired of being silent and watching our Country go down the tubes. We need to bring personal responsibility back to our nation. We need to bring this party together to win back the Senate and House and not by fighting over who is the head of the party. I am not interested in being bipartisan if that means SOCIALISM!!!!!!

[ManifestDestiny]

Axeman Axeman:

romanP romanP:

Yes, they should not have spent so much in the first place, considering most of that money was being shovelled into an unnecessary war. But they did, and now this is what they have.

Not a great deal unlike the spending "plan" that brought about the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Nope kinda like Obama's spending plan!!!!!!!!

[Axeman]

ManifestDestiny ManifestDestiny:

Nope kinda like Obama's spending plan!!!!!!!!

Hypocrite! You support Bush's reckless spending then villify Obama for his? Bush's war in Iraq and Obama's bailout are BOTH stupid wastes of money that will DEEPLY threaten the USA. You automatons need to take off the partisan blinders. Each administration is EQUALLY guilty of foolish fiscal policy. At least Obama's spending isn't primarily for the purpose of killing other humans.