Another Political Response.
Yet another response from a thread with my favorite Snoopy. The original thread can be seen here: http://www.livejournal.com/users/spenceraloysius/93576.html?thread=171400#t171400You know Kay, when you make broad-sweeping statements, I've got to challenge them.On the first topic of the debt, the real danger of national debt is lowering the price of bonds and increasing interest rates. This obviously effects things such as home ownership and general economic activity as both the government(and corporations forced to meet the changing rates of the government) issue bonds at lower rates/higher interest.In the current environment, there is not much danger of that. Corporations are not borrowing large amounts of money by issuing new bonds as they are not spending money on capital equipment and other items during a weak economy. Hence, overall quantity of new debt issues (bonds) is not much greater. Interest rates are in fact going down.As for the second issue of putting money into government programs that would help the economy, you as before, are being extremely vague. I could make an equal case that giving the money back to people will allow them to make the right choices in how they spend their own money; that they will indeed invest the money and thereby stimulate the economy. This has been shown time and again by entrepreneurial pushes that have created major growth in the nation.On the other hand, government is notoriously bad about mismanaging funds. This is actually not a failing of government alone, but many large(and small) NGOs. There is so much wasteful spending in the government. Obviously the government needs taxes to keep functioning, however with lower taxes, the government is forced to reduce wasteful spending because its budget is lower. Therefore people are actually getting more for their dollar with the government with lowered taxes. And in turn, they spend their money instead due to the lower taxes, creating demand for products manufactured by private companies.As for domestic-policy vs foreign-policy presidents, I don't believe we should have one or the other. What I think we need is a president capable of both short-term and long-term thinking. My feeling is Bush has actually been a long-term thinker in terms of foreign-policy. In an increasingly global environment, I think it is impossible(and downright negligent) to be just a domestic-president. On the domestic front, I'd like to hear your reasons for calling him "wimpy". He's certainly no more so than Clinton, who I felt could be predicted to do what the daily polls favored. I do not want a president who sways with the mob; mob rule is *not* good for the country.By implication, youre also putting blame on Bush for the poor economy. Yet, he has been in office for about two and a half years and many of the current problems of the economy are a direct result of events that were either out of his hands or originated in the prior eight years. As for Bush being a poor public speaker, I think we discussed this one before. Many of our presidents, even our greatest presidents, have been terrible public speakers. Truthfully, if we had television during their era, they probably would not have been elected at all. Bush, to me, comes off as very uncomfortable giving public speeches. This does not equate him to being an imbecile.Once more, I do not see how Bush is anymore a hypocrite than any prior president. If anything, he's stuck to his guns in many an unpopular decision. You've resorted to a lot of name calling towards Bush(sleazy, wimpy, hypocrite, stupid, etc) but without a lot of solid facts to back up your position. I know you're a logical individual, so I don't see why you're doing this beyond going on gut emotional response. You're doing what you've accused Bush and his Administration of doing(the name-calling bit) and it's undercutting your arguments. Honestly, it sounds like you're buying into the hype of what his detractors are saying about him.