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Timmah! on 01 September 2008
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akuma587 said:
Timmah! said:

 

I wouldn't call those policies. It's not really explained how he'll pay for these things, most are just more lofty goals with no real plan to implement them.

And wow, what great plans he has for MY MONEY. Big government getting it's hands into EVERY ASPECT of our daily lives. I'm sorry, but every government insitution I've ever visited, from the DMV, to social security offices, courthouses, etc has been poorly run, inneficient as hell, incredible wasters of money, etc, etc. All the problems government is currently trying to fix GOVERNMENT CREATED IN THE FIRST FREAKING PLACE! Lofty, impossible goals sound good on paper, but once the beaurocrats get their hands on this (which they will, Jesus-bama can't run all this by himself), it will be nothing but big crap from big government. Obama is young and a dreamer. He is well intentioned and I have no personal problem with him, he seems like a nice enough guy, but he is a tax & spend liberal who thinks governemt is the answer to all our problems (many of which, ironically, were created by government in the first place). The tax increases needed to pay for all this will far outweigh the 'benefits'... they always do.

My favorite promise: cut CO2 emmissions 80% by 2050. Great, by that time he won't be in the oval office anymore. How? not really explained. Typical over the top campaign promises.

Actually he has explained how he will pay for most of those things in many of his speeches.  He said he would repeal the Bush tax cuts and close a lot of the corporate loopholes.  Considering the Bush tax cuts have cost us more than double the cost of the ENTIRE Iraq war, his proposals are entirely feasible.

So presidents shouldn't try to set long-term goals?  I think it is completely realistic to admit you can't do everything you want in one term, but that you should start a legacy, much like what Clinton was trying to do to reduce the national debt.  Unfortunately, Bush derailed that pretty quickly.

 

It's kind of tough to say what the Bush tax cuts really cost, and if they actually did cost us anything. Revenue to the government has actually gone up since the tax cuts because the economy improved after the early Bush term recession (which was a combination of cyclical factors, as well as the attacks of 9/11, Bush had not been in office long enough to have caused the first recession). It could be argued that the economy would not has improved as well or as quickly, so revenues would have stayed flat even with higher taxes. Because there's no way to determine what would have happened without the tax cuts, this remains a matter of opinion rather than fact. I believe the tax cuts stimulated the economy, and the increased revenue from a better economy negated the lower tax rate, resulting in no loss to government revenue, this is backed up by the numbers.

However, if you believe that the economy would have recovered the same without the tax cuts, it would make sense that they did cost the government money. Either way, it comes down to unproveable opinion.