[JessiPollo]

Originally posted by VJ
Well, erm... He's most closely associated with people who were born into millionaire families owning a lot in the stock market, like he did. He doesn't really care what happens to neoconservatives or "midwestern social conservatives" as long as they'll vote for him. Bush has done a lot of 360 degree (example: immigration) and 180 degree (example: terrorism) turns by now in a lot issues, but he has solidly continued to ensure that the good times roll for those who own a lot in the stock market. His greatest asset is that the working people won't have any time or interest to check how the image of the republican party they once absorbed is correlating with reality -- "I voted for Bush because I'm a republican" will probably translate into "I'll vote for my congressman because I'm a republican", no matter how big-government they are or will be.

I'm not really sure neoconservatives only live in "liberal" regions of the US, considering lotm lives in VA and Imran in urban GA... Northern Virginia and Atlanta are relatively quite liberal. (At least NoVA is, and I've heard Atlanta's similar.)

[mr.nemo]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


That's because they're lying. Dan is a W sycophant, FACT!

[provigil]

1) In English the terms are completely ambiguous. A region could refer to an area a few inches square or light years across.

2) We don't make up enough of those "regions" to be catered to. You have liberals and neoconservatives in every state, from Massachussetts to Utah, but that doesn't mean they don't have general "regional" tendencies.

[Peabelilt]

pay to current troops and weapons procurement are not recurring, they also add little if anything back into the economy. How do you figure, all my salary goes back into the economy. Of of the millions of dollars I have spent this year keeping my ship working, zero has not gone straight into the economy.

not to mention dividend tax cuts and other such tax cuts that have decreased government revenue Pretty sure I read on this very site that revenue is up this year.

[curcercanty]

Originally posted by Patroklos
Pretty sure I read on this very site that revenue is up this year. That's true, for two reasons. Reason #1, they low balled the original estimate (as they've done every year) so that when they exceed "expectations" they can claim their policies are succeeded. It's kinda like the episode of Start Trek: TNG where Scotty explains to Jeordi that the secret to being a great engineer is to tell the captain it will take three times as long to fix something as it really does, so that you'll look amazing when you get it done three times as fast as estimated.

Reason number two, there has been a major shift in the percentage of income earn by various parts of the populous, with the bottom 90% earning less, and the top 10% earning more. Since an even greater propotion of the national income is in the hands of those who are taxed the most, tax revenues have gone up. That's not really a success for our nation.

[wrefrinny]

Originally posted by DanS


This isn't true, but is a typical misconception. It all depends on how much your economy has grown in the meantime. For instance, in 2005, the US economy grew at a 6.3% nominal rate. Inasmuch as the deficit was less than 3.8% of the economy, the nation's debt as a percentage of the economy went down.

For the long-term, the debt on a 2% deficit yearly would stabilize at around 40% of the economy.

Really, you should look at all levels of gov't and the "net lending" line item in the national accounts as the deficit rather than the federal deficit given by the Treasury, but that's a separate issue.
An equally typical misconception is to confuse an increase in the GDP statistic with an increase in productive economic activity.

Simply borrowing 5% of its economic output per year results in the US increasing its GDP number by (give or take) 5%. Since US debt is deemed to be extremely secure, when it borrows, it does not take money out of the economy, it simply creates it.

So when the US borrows money, the GDP figure goes up, regardless of what else is happening in the actual economy. It doesn't matter if if manufacturing is collapsing and the trade deficit is out of control. So long as you can continue to increase your real debt, everything looks good. Just like it did at Enron.

But once we can no longer increase our debt as a fraction of GDP, everything will instantly look very bad indeed.

[diundasmink]

Originally posted by DanS
Do you imagine 150,000 troops or 200,000 troops in Iraq 10 years from now?
sadly, yes.

[22CreessGah]

should have happened a long time ago - then break up Turkey and we can take back Constantinople

[Pharmaciest2007]

you could go both ways, mop up Syria while you're at it

[PekHyvac]

Dan, no response for Vanguard?

[JoesBro]

Originally posted by DanS
Iraq will be partitioned before that happens. Cheaper. Whatever happened to that vision of a model of democracy for the Mideast, and a friendly, pro-American base for US influence and power projection?

[mirex]

Death Spiral? Meh.

Recession? Entirely possible. Which will somehow get blamed on the Dems, no doubt.

-Arrian

[arindiruppyr]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Dan, no response for Vanguard? I've responded in the past with regard to the difference between gross debt and net debt. No need to repeat. For this thread, I will say that Bush went above and beyond the call of duty to convince the Dems to help reform Social Security for the good of all (that's the significance of the difference between gross debt and net debt).

[KellyMP]

Originally posted by DanS


Why have one when you can have three? Ah, so after partition, then they'll love us?