The American Spectator : Obama's Responsibility

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"What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them -- that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works -- whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified."

So said Barack Obama upon his inauguration as the 44th President of the United States. And, yes, that is exactly the question we ask today, and the standard to which he will be held. Does the government that he and the liberal Democrats now completely control and for which they will be held responsible work for the good of the people of the United States?

But it is characteristic self-absorption for Obama to think this is a new question. It is the same question the people asked the last time liberal Democrats held dominant power for an extended period -- the 1970s. Obama's political forebears back then produced both roaring inflation and soaring unemployment, along with stratospheric interest rates. If Obama and his liberal allies do that again, yes, indeed, the people will be asking what happened to government that works?

It is, in fact, the exact same question that Ronald Reagan asked the people in 1980, Are you better off today than you were four years ago? If Obama and his liberals want to ignore what Reagan did to solve the problems created by the liberal Democrats of the 1970s, or if they want to pretend that the spectacular Reagan boom never happened, they can just go right ahead. Just adopt the exact same economic policies those 1970s liberals did, and take us backwards 40 years, and call it change. That is exactly what Obama is proposing, only on a much grander scale, with a trillion dollars of new spending in his first two months, and deficits well over a trillion as far as the eye can see, when just last year the entire federal budget was $3 trillion. All while whooping on the Fed to loose, easy money. And if the result is to bring back roaring inflation while unemployment is still higher, and interest rates are in double digits, Obama can rest assured that he will face an opponent four years from now who will be asking whether his government really works for the people.

The Congressional Budget Office released a report just the other day indicating that Obama's idea from the 1930s of trying to stimulate the economy in the short term with hundreds of billions in increased infrastructure spending will not work because most of the money cannot possibly be spent in the short term. Much if not most of it will still not be spent by 2012. But that is not the only thing wrong with Obama's stimulus plan. If the government borrows a trillion dollars out of the economy to put it back in by spending a trillion dollars, that leaves no net gain to the economy.

What works is enhanced incentives for economically productive activity, which results from reductions in marginal tax rates and in unnecessary regulatory costs. But if, while Obama "proclaim[s] an end…to worn out dogmas," and that "the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply," he ideologically rejects such practical and proven policies because they also benefit those he believes already have too much, then he should not be surprised when that long outdated, hoary, 19th-century ideology does not work. If Obama thinks he is going to create prosperity by increased welfare, runaway spending, and trillions in deficits instead, he should remember, as he himself has said, the test will be what works.

The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that on Obama's first day in office he will summon his national security team to begin preparations for all troops to leave Iraq within 16 months. George Bush already won the war in Iraq, while Obama counseled defeat. A formal agreement is already in place for all U.S. troops to leave within the next 35 months, and they already began leaving last summer. But if Obama's ideology insists that this is not good enough, and they must all get out of there within 16 months no matter what, then if Obama loses what has already been won as a result, the people will ask what happened to the government that works, and will hold him responsible.

Obama also said yesterday, "As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man…. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake."

George Bush has set a standard for Obama in at least one sense -- no terrorist attacks on U.S. soil since 9/11. Obama now promises to change course out of concern that those with knowledge regarding plans to murder Americans, or who have attacked America outside the bounds of warfare, not be treated too harshly. But if terrorism returns to our land on his watch, then Obama and his liberal Democrats will be held responsible, you betcha, as Americans ask what happened to the government that works. Obama should recall that when General Washington's forces captured British Major John Andre spying behind their lines out of uniform, Washington accorded him the dignity of a swift military trial and execution by firing squad.

Obama also promised yesterday, "We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories." That is a nice dreamy vision, but if we neglect production of what we know works to power our economy -- oil, and gas, and coal, and nuclear power -- and we end up with blackouts and gas rationing because the sun and the winds and the soil didn't really come through, then Obama will be held responsible, as America again asks what happened to the government that works.

Obama ran for President as a champion of the middle class. But yesterday he seemed to be threatening it, saying, "And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders, nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change along with it." Despite Obama's long campaign, I still don't know what change he is talking about here, and neither does America's middle class. America can best help the world's poor by leading a global economic boom, as it did from 1982 to 2007, the greatest period of worldwide prosperity in the history of the planet, as Art Laffer and Steve Moore have recently written. But if Obama thinks he is going to save the world through American austerity and deprivation, then the American people will be asking, what happened to the government that works?

Obama concluded yesterday by saying, "What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility -- a recognition on the part of every American that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task."

We didn't hear much during the campaign about responsibility, duties to the world, and giving our all to difficult tasks. What I remember hearing is a tax cut for 95% of workers, and "if you are in the bottom 95% your taxes will go down, not up," and that there will be no tax increase on the bottom 95% of income earners. So the minute Obama and his liberal Democrats propose a tax increase for anyone in the bottom 95%, I expect the American people to hold them responsible, you betcha.

Letter to the Editor

Jason| 1.21.09 @ 6:52AM

FDR's ideas have been recycled by Obama, virtually unchanged. If his plans aren't tempered by the "cynics" we will see a new Great Depression.
http://www.rightklik.net/

Bob| 1.21.09 @ 7:39AM

Ferrara continues to show that he doesn't understand even the basics about economic policy or economic theory. The facts show that the reduced taxes of the Reagan and Bush administrations did not grow the economy (GDP) more than any other administration. Furthermore, those administrations created more debt for our children than ALL of the other administrations combined -- even on a normalized basis.

Ferrara, do you have an economics degree? You need to study the subject. You seem to lack the mathematical discipline to be taken seriously on this issue.

Please study the numbers and tell us something consistent with the actual data. If you can't get the information yourself, let me know and I'll provide the links.

Now, as to your ideological theories. It is absolutely true that the return for stimulus spending will not be greater than the money spent. I don't know of any economists who believe otherwise. But there will be a return -- both short and longer term. The whole concept of a stimulus plan is to halt the continued decline of the economy so we won't have a depression. There is a real benefit, and also a psychological benefit. Since our economy is 70% consumption, part of the stimulus is to get people to increase their spending by reducing their fear. I would like to see a smaller stimulus, but we still need one.

The concept of lower taxes stimulating the economy is factual nonsense. We've now had three Republican presidencies with lower tax policies and all they have done is increase debt. None of them have grown the economy more than anyone else. It is simply a case of getting something for nothing and putting off the payment for this to our children. It is totally irresponsible.

By the way, how did you get through your associations with Abramoff as an apologist? And please, if you are going to comment on economic policy, learn the facts and something about economic and mathematical theory.

Greg| 1.21.09 @ 8:14AM

Three things:

First, Major John Andre was hanged, not shot by firing squad.

Second, Bob: You're wrong. The increase in debts were not a result of the Bushies and Reagans' tax cut policies; both of those increased net revenues into the treasury. The debts were brought about by even larger increases in spending (mostly by Dems in Congress, though RINO Republicans are as well quite guilty...even though the RINO invlovement was usually an attempt to bribe Dem constituents who consistently vote for the full trough of govt excess spending and entitlements)

Third, I have an MA in Economics.

Bob| 1.21.09 @ 8:38AM

Actually, Greg, you are the one that is wrong. Let me explain. First of all, your facts are wrong. The Reagan and Bush tax cut policies did not result in increased net revenues over the period of their presidencies. Here is a chart of federal revenues:

http://www.heritage.org/research/features/budgetchartbook/fed-rev-spend-2008-boc-R2-Federal-Government-Tax-Revenue.html

Since you also have a degree in econ, you can surely read this chart of actual data. As with all economic data, there are annual fluctuations but the overall slope of the increase is basically unchanged from Democrat administrations. Furthermore, the greatest increase in federal revenues occurred during the Clinton administration (however, I don't give Clinton's policies the credit for that, either).

In addition, I constantly hear the ideological line that tax policy was good but it was the spending that caused the problem. That is extremely naive. If you understand the nature of the federal budget, you'd see that 53% is entitlements, 20% is military, and now about 10% is interest. There is only 17% left for everything else. Unless you are willing to cut social security, medicare, and the military, you will not get any significant budget cuts. Given the boomers, if you really have a degree in econ, you'd understand that this problem actually gets worse over the next 20-30 years because of population statistics.

Politically, neither Democrats or Republicans will reduce entitlements because they know they will not be reelected. That is why it is delusional to believe you can achieve any significant reduction in the budget with our form of government. It is not because of the Dems/"libs", because when Republicans had control of the White House and Congress during the beginning of this century, they did nothing.

Economics is not only the study of simplistic theory, but what actually occurs given the complexity of global business, monetary policy, and, most importantly, politics and our form of government.

So please drop the ideology and deal with reality and facts. Personally, I'd like to see a reform of entitlement programs and a reduction of our debt -- that is a true conservative position not one like yours that is based on fantasy.

Many supporters of low tax theory used a "starve the beast" philosophy, i.e., lower revenues will force spending decreases. Well, in real life they don't. I believe in a "no pain, no gain" philosophy. If people were actually taxed for the things they received from government, they might be more amenable to cut spending. You do this through the discipline of balanced budgets.

In reality, the fallacy of low taxes is that it just creates more debt. We now have significant history to prove that. It is only the economic idiots who eschew reality and believe that low taxes are the answer.

Robert Rosencrans| 1.21.09 @ 8:43AM

Obama's speech was the antithesis of belief in people, it was all about belief in policy, those policies promulgated by an ever growing government presence in the private sector. To succeed at this policy, the government must seize truckloads of private wealth, all the while attacking the engine of that wealth.

According to Obama, the free market must be watched closely. In making this claim, Obama ignores recent history, and his own small part in the current financial molasses.

Barack Obama sued a bank that had refused a loan to a minority. This was just one suit by community organizers who goaded banks into making bad loans, and the bill came due.

The Community Reinvestment Act, after super charging by the Clinton administration, only needed time and gullibility to create a financial debacle and both were available to the government at little to no cost.

Obama seems convinced the government can do it all. Obama should take a sobering look at the after effects of the first TARP phase. Bank stocks are in the tank, and there is fear of further nationalization.

Obama's speech wasn't a call to greatness, it was a call to solidarity, the same clarion call heard from the likes of Castro, Marx, Lenin, Hitler and Carter.

It takes a lot of gall to make that call against the free market when Obama's own campaign finance manager, Penny Pritzker, rode Superior Bank into the ground by making subprime loans. Fourteen thousand depositors lost their lives savings and the FDIC had to bail the bank out to the tune of 750 million dollars.
http://iusbvision.wordpress.com/2008/09/30/obama-sued-citibank-under-cra-to-force-it-to-make-bad-loans/
It is important to understand the nature of these lawsuits and what their purpose is. ACORN filed, or threatened to file, tons of these lawsuits and ALL CRA suits allege racism (usually the press involved and such with the threat of the CRA lawsuit is enough to get the bank to give in and put them in a catch 22, they also had a willing Janet Reno Justice Department to work with - see below for more on Reno). As we have said in our series or articles analyzing every aspect of this story (links at the very bottom of this post), the series of ACORN harassment lawsuits and intimidation against banks to lower credit standards was not the sole reason for the mortgage crisis, it was one important layer of many that brought us to the mortgage crisis and the largest financial scandal in the history of the world.

Robert Rosencrans| 1.21.09 @ 8:48AM

I see the phony information above about Reagan's spending again being more then all other Presidents combined. Visit the Bureau of the Public Debt. Look at the historical abstracts. Ronald Reagan was the last President to leave office with the national debt under one trillion (998 billion.) Under President Clinton the national debt grew by almost two trillion. Who can argue against facts? Lunatics, that's who.

John Catsicas| 1.21.09 @ 9:12AM

I agree with the Ferrara's overall assessment - Obama has confused political rhetoric with reality. What do you expect from a politician who has never had to earn a wage doing an honest day’s job? The reality is that the next four years will test the Obama doctrine that you can change the laws of political physics. The problem with the USA is not that everyone in the world hates you; it is that everyone depends on you. Obama will quickly realize when he does get on a plane, as the President of the USA, that the new found allies of the USA are either incapable or simply not willing in solving the problems of the world. He will soon realise that wealth generation is not distribution of wealth and the poor are poor for a multitude of reason that transcend political doing. Legislating “wealth transfers” is the sure way to economic destruction. Finally, he will realize like the Chamberlin’s [British Premier in 1939] that appeasement does have a price – deferred conflict. As they say – good luck

Bob| 1.21.09 @ 9:12AM

Robert, the data comes from the same source that you are using. A dollar in 1980 was worth less than a dollar today -- it's called "inflation". To compare a timeline without data normalization is sheer stupidity. Furthermore, the trend line, even if you just use the data from the Bureau of Public Debt doesn't support your position:

http://www.cedarcomm.com/~stevelm1/usdebt.htm

Normalizing the data makes it look worse:

http://zfacts.com/p/318.html

Robert, you can live in fantasy, or actually look at the facts. If you want to live your life in fantasy, visit Orlando.

JP| 1.21.09 @ 9:22AM

The times have changed. I believe, the Federal goverment will have to reduce spending significantly -sooner rather than later. The problem isn't nessicairily taxes (even though they do have a large impact), but the amount of wealth and property consumed by all goverments. The fedral budget is about $3 trillion (30% of our GDP), but the Fed has borrowed another $11 trillion (soon to be $13 trillion). Demographics being what they are, there is about $56 trillion in under funded liabilities in both Social Security and state pensions. Do the math. There is no way future workers can be taxed in order to support this burden. The Treasury will not be able to borrow this amount.

The "good times" are over -at least for now. Until the federal goverment can get its fiscal house in order, there can be no future growth. By 2012, whoever is running our goverment will be forced to make very difficult choices.

Michael Roush| 1.21.09 @ 9:28AM

Bob,
You are right about the failure of tax cuts to raise government revenue. The point was made very succinctly months ago by Ben Stein in his sage counsel to the Republican Party to own up to and abandon this false economic concept. The power of this idea resides in its appeal to all of us - who among us, after all, likes to pay taxes? Nevertheless, as we face the challenges before us, we will, as a nation, have to put childish things behind us. Foremost among these should be patently wrong beliefs that are self-serving but disadvantage greatly our children and grandchildren.

Robert Rosencrans| 1.21.09 @ 9:33AM

Like I said, there's no sense in arguing with a crazy man.

Donna| 1.21.09 @ 9:46AM

Bob, you can skew data all you want and make it mean anything. Thomas Sowell, who has a Pd.D in economics and has written numerous books on economics states that tax cuts and keeping government out of the private sector are the only things that make sense. You can't both be right and he has more credentials than you.

Hope| 1.21.09 @ 9:48AM

The idea of using farms to produce fuel for cars will fail.

Farm land is to produce food, the moment land is taken out of food production to produce fuel for cars it turns into a problem, famine.

Indiana Alex| 1.21.09 @ 10:13AM

Why are the same people so concerned about deficits caused by tax cuts so willing to go into debt for the government to spend $1 trillion?

Ideology. Faith that the government will distribute the money somewhat evenly, building windmills that require government subsidies to exist, while taking capital away from productive businesses, where someone might just get rich.

Bob| 1.21.09 @ 10:44AM

Robert, you are right, there's no sense in arguing with a crazy man -- especially one who can't understand basic data. Therefore, I will limit my argumentation with you.

Donna, I've read a lot of what Sowell has written and agree with much of it -- especially where it relates to the ineffectiveness of dogma. He promotes looking at the real data. Something happened to Sowell as he grew older, he became less data driven and more ideological eschewing the very principles he once propounded.

In theory, he was absolutely right that tax cuts have the potential to increase federal revenues. The theory is sound. But we now have enough data to show that tax cut policy had little to do with revenue increases under Reagan. In fact, we've learned that following Reagan, higher tax rates also allowed revenues to grow by even larger amounts.

So what do you do if you are Sowell and have your income come from the Hoover institution? Do you say that you were wrong because the data no longer supports your theory? No, you are older and want the income.

Here's a summary argument with references by PhD economists that support my (and Ben Stein's) conclusions:

http://www.cbpp.org/7-18-08tax.htm

You might be surprised that I supported Sowell and his theories years ago. But with degrees in mathematics and economics, I must look at the data and use some reason and logic. I was wrong about the Reagan tax cuts, and so is Sowell.

By the way, I AM a supporter of free market solutions -- perhaps even more than Sowell. The only thing government should, in my opinion, is keep the market free of corruption through selected regulation. For example, the best way to make sure loans are done right is to insure that the originating institution retains a good portion of the risk of that loan. If they have "skin in the game", they are more apt to make good loans. If they can offload the risk to Fannie/Freddie/mortgage-backed-securities/derivatives and swaps, they why be careful about who gets the loans. The industry mislead and lied to many sub-prime borrowers. I know, I was in the business.

Furthermore, I believe we should not have tax incentives. I'd rather tax everyone evenly and let the market decide where capital should go. I don't see the economic expertise in our elected politicians to use a centrally managed approach.

So yes, I am even more market driven than Sowell.

Bob| 1.21.09 @ 10:45AM

And by the way Donna, the charts are original data directly from the federal government and are not skewed in any way.

Dustoff| 1.21.09 @ 11:10AM

So Bob, how is the high taxes and spending working in say Germany.
Their unemployment has been at what rate for how long. Heck try Italy, now these is a huge shocker.

Robert Rosencrans| 1.21.09 @ 11:13AM

Bob: You can ladle out all the BS you want. You can't change the fact that Bill Clinton spent two trillion and Ronald Reagan was the last President where the national debt was under one trillion. Do you disagree with that ? If so, you are a lunatic or an Alinskybot because those are the facts.

Bob| 1.21.09 @ 11:37AM

Robert, I see you don't have any knowledge of data. Here, DIRECTLY FROM THE US TREASURY, is a table of outstanding debt.

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo4.htm

Notice that at the END of Reagan's term, the debt was $2,350,276,890,953. At the start of his term the debt was $826,519,000,000. REAGAN TRIPLED THE DEBT!!! That is a 184% increase. Under Clinton we had a 39% increase. Do you disagree with this? It is hard to believe someone could be so ignorant about basic math.

Look at the data!!! Did you have any math in high school?

Now, I can't seem to talk about more advanced concepts with you like the fact that the dollar is worth less today than it was in 1980 and how you normalize the data to account for that. So be it -- you show what is wrong about our party and why it continues to decline.

Dustoff -- I've never advocated high taxes and high spending, what I've said is that the way we implement lower taxes doesn't work. I'd like to see spending reduced -- how many times do I have to say that. But that will not happen magically. I believe it will only occur when we force voters to pay for what they are getting through balanced budgets. If there is no pain, there is no gain.... Capish?????

Robert Rosencrans| 1.21.09 @ 11:46AM

Bob: I got my figures from the Bureau of Public Debt. If they don't know what the Public Debt is, who does? In the meantime you continue to hijack every thread and try to turn it back to how Reagan was such a big spender. One dimensional? Delusional? You have a one track mind. Do some charts on people who have one track minds. I'd actually like to see that.
In the meantime, you should stop spouting that nonsense for the reasons noted. The fact is, each succeeding President is forced to spend more then the President that preceded him. George H.W. Bush caused a rise of 700 billion in the National Debt. Bill Clinton then doubled that. Now George W. Bush has doubled that. I predict that Obama will double that. The entitlements and other required government spending are the problem.

JP| 1.21.09 @ 11:59AM

Bob and others,
You arguements are moot (esp Bob's) as long as our society has the debt millstone around its neck. If you wish to see where our society is going look at Big Auto (esp the Big 3). They've been in decline, steep decline for a decade thanks to under funded union liabilities (namely overly generous retiree pensiona and health care costs). It was only when the national economy went into steep decline in 2007 did thier problems grab the news -that is, when THIER REVENUES DECLINED (thanks to the implosion of the last resevoir private wealth- real estate equities). As long as GM and Ford were selling they could absorb the costs.

The state goverments already are having revenue shortfalls -despite large tax increases in states such as California and New York. Raising taxes is kind of useless when spending continues unabated. It only chases those people and organizations that contribute to the tax base out of state.

Obama and Congress (with a major assist from former President Bush) are accelerating the process that is sending the Big 3 to near ruin. The question is: who bails out the Treasury when it is insolvent?

Stan Redmond| 1.21.09 @ 12:11PM

Obama's really fun challenge will be when his wild infrastructure spending spree runs headlong in to the same environmentalist regulation that stifles every private industry in the nation. He won't be able to build one single project without 4 years of environmental impact studies, spotted owl studies, endangered toad studies, global warming impact fees, carbon offset fees, tree huggers tree sitting, and all the other garbage Obama's constituents have supported to limit the evil corporate developers. I doubt even his empty windy speeches will persuade a die hard tree hugger to let go of his beloved tree or save a spotted owl from being chopped up in an innefecient windmill. And Obama help himself when he tries something in the PNW that interferes with a salmon migration.

Bob| 1.21.09 @ 12:11PM

Robert, did you go to school at all? The Bureau of Public Debt IS the Treasury Department. THE NUMBERS ARE THE SAME. LOOK AT THEM. You just don't understand how to read the data. The argument was whether tax cuts were good for the country. Get this through your skull -- they did not help economic growth and they significantly added to the debt. They did not work!!!!

JP, if you've read my posts, you'd notice that I agree with you 100%. The arguments, however, are not moot. Tax cuts are the quickest way to increase debt -- and debt, as you correctly point out -- are the problem.

Peter McGrath| 1.21.09 @ 12:22PM

An important point being overlooked is that Reagan - between 1981 and 1986 - reduced the top marginal income tax rate from 70% to 28%. This earth-shifting rate change was increased (slightly) by Clinton to 31% in 1991. The overall effect of Reagan's decisive policy (adopted by a Democrat-controlled Congress) was a massive increase of capital available in the private economy for investement, and re-investment, and so on. Our GNP (now GDP) dramatically increased as a result - from about $2.5 trillion in 1980 to about $15 trillion today. America, today, despite recent setbacks, is by far the wealthiest nation in the history of the world as a result of Reagan's policies. Capital investment in private enterprises is what causes growth. Wealth begets more wealth in the private economy, while wealth "invested" in the public sector goes in the tank. Of course, confiscating such wealth from the productive private sector and shifting it to the unproductive public sector (and then paying off constituents with increased benefits and "tax cuts" for those who don't pay taxes) guarantees political power for hucksters like Obama - who is certainly aware of the above but prefers the perks and privileges of his own station over the well-being of his constituents. And - of course - it will be the poor who suffer the most under his (hopefully one term) reign.

Robert Vollowitz| 1.21.09 @ 12:36PM

Peter, have you actually looked at the data? Do you know how the data looks if we adjust it for the value of the dollar which has been significantly devalued over time? This chart has both graphs:

http://www.data360.org/dsg.aspx?Data_Set_Group_Id=230

Do you really believe we shouldn't correct for the value of the dollar? Much of the growth you talk about is not real -- it's inflation. Even if you look at the graph of raw data you certainly can't come to the conclusion that tax reductions had a drastic effect on GDP. Please take a course in econ so you understand GDP and inflation....

Reagan's team was correct that the 70% top marginal tax rate was ridiculously high. But, economic growth they predicted (I believe it was 6%) did not occur and we had a very normal 3% growth rate. Therefore, the growth was not large enough to cover the reduced federal revenues and thus the very high debt.

daddio| 1.21.09 @ 12:45PM

No one will notice that his policies have failed because it will not be reported by the adoring media.

Brian B| 1.21.09 @ 1:09PM

Bob,
I agree with you that the government should not incentivize with taxes; one of the incentives being the progressive feature of income taxes. This leads to a bigger political problem than an economic one when a substantial portion of the populace's only stake in government is how much it gives them rather than how much it takes.
Your arguments about tax cuts however seem pretty lame.
First, you label tax cutters as exclusively Republicans. It is true that Clinton slightly raised marginal rates but this was more than offset by the capital gains cut. So was he net tax raiser or cutter? Bush 41 was a net raiser and produced a recession, the S&L;crisis was hardly noteworthy in the deficit department.
Moeover you seem to conflate tax revenues with economic growth. If as you state there was no net increase (and therfore presumably no net decrease) in tax revenues from lower rates, that would indicate that economic growth must have been higher than it would have otherwise to recieve equal revenues from lower rates. Isn't that preferable to receiving the same revenues from higher rates but less wealth?
As to the spending side of it, you seem to rather breezily brush aside the 'facts' you claim to love. You cannot just dismiss the defense spending part of the budget as though it is not altered by events. A large part of Reagan's spending increase was the defense buildup as increased defense, war and homeland security spending was a large part of Bush 43's. Similarly a large portion of Clinton's relative frugality was the so called 'peace dividend'.
Both Bush and Reagan made the large mistake of not holding the line on discretionary spending as much as they could have and should have and in doing so unnecessarily made arguments like this one inevitable. But the fact is, born out by your own admission that revenues grow aproximately the same under either tax cuts or increases, increased spending is the only explanation for increased deficits over the long term. Therefore the argument that somehow tax cuts which produce approximately the same revenues as higher taxes are somehow responsible for deficits seems a little nonsensical.
I'll take lower rates, more wealth and someday some leaders with enough guts to cut the size of the government. Those leaders will never appear as long as the solution to deficits is seen as higher taxes.
And why don't you quit being such a rude prig?

Brian B| 1.21.09 @ 1:20PM

BTW, take a look at any linear graph of the GDP trend from, say 1940 to the present. Notice anything that sticks out from 1980 or so until the present?
GDP since Reagan slashed rates and since his predecessors have kept them much lower than they were previous to Reagan, is significantly above the trend line of the previous forty years. Lower rates via tax cuts means the same money for government and more wealth for the rest of us.

Bob| 1.21.09 @ 1:40PM

Brian, let me answer your statements:

"If as you state there was no net increase (and therfore presumably no net decrease) in tax revenues from lower rates, that would indicate that economic growth must have been higher than it would have otherwise to recieve equal revenues from lower rates. Isn't that preferable to receiving the same revenues from higher rates but less wealth?"

Actually, we have the data on economic growth (GDP), and it did not grow any more with the tax cuts than normal. So the additional tax revenue did not come from increased economic growth. There was certainly more investment, and this investment created more cap gains revenues but was primarily financial in nature and did not help the GDP. Financial gains do not produce gains in our domestic production. The facts are clear. By the way, the deductions with the higher tax rates were far more generous than at the lower rates so the effective rates did not change that much. The CBO calculates the effective federal tax rate at 22.2% in 1979 and it achieved a low of 20.4% in 1983. Since then, it has not risen about 22.9%. You can see the CBO report at this link:

http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=6133&type=0

Most people who have studied economics don't realize how little the marginal tax rates effect the overall effective tax rate.

Regarding spending, you talk about the effect of military spending. Yes, military spending increased, but the increase was not that large. Here's a chart of defense spending:

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Features/BudgetChartBook/fed-rev-spend-2008-boc-S7-Despite-War-Costs-Defense.html

So you are certainly correct about the peace dividend, but it was not as large as you make it seem.

"Hoping" that the leaders will reduce spending has never worked -- it is simply a fantasy. No politician will bet against his own self interest. So you taking lower rates only hurts your children and grandchildren. If that is morally acceptable to you, then you have a problem.

And, given the lack of reason and prolific hate I find on this board, I will continue to be "a rude pig" because the future of the Republican party is important to me and you guys do not respond to logic and objectivity.

Jacob Morgan| 1.21.09 @ 1:51PM

daddio has it right.

Let's not call Obama a Democrat, rather he is a member of the Media Party, as are all Democrats. We should refer to "Democratic" candidates as Media Party candidates, etc.

It will be a curious coincidence that the only government that "works" is one that is large. I suppose that the automakers and home builders ought to be allowed to make that statement as well.

Wind power to power factories? "Quick Joe, punch the clock, there's a noreaster blowen, quick before it stops!"

J Jo| 1.21.09 @ 1:54PM

Low tax rates do not create more debt. Low interest rates AND a functioning credit market create more debt.

I used to believe that lowering tax rates = more revenue. I am changing my mind and thinking that it is was the creation of easy credit and low interest rates that caused revenues to increase. Think about it. The explosion of securitized debt took off in the 80s and exploded in the 90s. If there is more economic activity to tax due to the ability to borrow to finance the projects that you are unable to afford in the present, then tax revenues will naturally increase.

I am not saying that lower tax rates do not play a role but low interest rates and a function credit market are the real culprits.

Now that we are in a deflationary environment, you could lower the tax rate all you want and revenues will decline. There is just less economic activity and income to tax.

Zaraeleus| 1.21.09 @ 2:03PM

Fairtax.
Nuff Said

S.L. Toddard| 1.21.09 @ 2:48PM

"George Bush has set a standard for Obama in at least one sense -- no terrorist attacks on U.S. soil since 9/11"

He also set another standard: his gross negligence and dereliction of duty allowed the worst terrorist attack in American history. He failed, more than any other president in American history, to keep us safe, correct? Another article here pointed out that President Bush never "moved on" from 9/11, which I thought was ungenerous and I duly responded that "if I had committed a dereliction of duty so profoundly egregious that it allowed the worst terrorist attack in the history of the U.S. then I'd have trouble "moving on" as well. I think we should give Bush a pass on having trouble moving on after his failure to protect us - it was the worst failure to do so by any president in history. Through gross, dimwitted incompetence and obscene negligence President Bush allowed more Americans to die at the hands of terrorists than all other presidents put together. And his follow up to that unforgivable failure was to send over four thousand American soldiers to THEIR deaths, based on (and this is the most generous interpretation) an imbecilic reading of faulty intelligence.
If someone's incompetence lead to the deaths of three thousand people they were sworn to serve, and then they in their stupidity sent another FOUR THOUSAND people to THEIR deaths as part of the worst blunder in the history of U.S. foreign policy, they would have to be inhuman to be able to "move on". George Bush may be a lot of things but he is, technically, human. Cut the guy some slack."

Now wouldn't you say that this is a fair assessment? It's an inarguable fact that President Bush failed more than any other president to keep America safe, right? I mean, is there any possible way to argue against that obvious fact? I don't think so. Even with all the very many glaring failures to choose from, his failure to keep America safe stands out from all the rest, with the lone possible exception of his failure in judgement in sending over four thousand Americans to their deaths in Iraq. But when one has the blood of over seven thousand Americans on their hands through a combination of incompetence and stupidity it gets difficult to weigh which failure is "the worst". Still, though, I should think the one thing we can all agree on is that President Bush failed horribly to keep us safe. Saying "President Bush hasn't allowed any terrorist attacks since the last one which was the worst terrorist attack in American history" is a bit like saying "My husband hasn't beaten me since the last time he beat me", no?

Bob| 1.21.09 @ 2:54PM

Actually J Jo, we now know that the way we implement low tax rates does, indeed, create more debt because the revenue created is much less than the tax collections received. However, I would agree with you that consumer credit is a factor in increasing revenues. That said, I don't know how much of a factor it is since a good portion of the consumer consumption dollars goes out of the country.

Brian B| 1.21.09 @ 2:56PM

Bob,

You state the effective tax rate was 22+% in the 70's and 20+% in the 80's and then immediately discuss 'marginal' rate cuts as being ineffective. The overall 'effective' rate bears little relationship to the marginal rate.
And we do indeed know the growth in GDP. The rate of growth from 1980 until present was significantly above the growth trend for the previous 40 years, a period of overall good economic growth in and of itself.
You also dismiss capital and investment gains as not being part of GDP and therefore apparently irrelevant to a discussion of tax rates; a peculiar argument to say the least.
You put the word 'hoping' in quotes. I am not aware I used it. But I do know that the idea that higher tax rates will somehow induce spending discipline is about as pointlessly hopeful as one can get, if that is your argument.
Your argument, other than disagreeing with others, is in fact pretty darn hard to discern.
But, again, it seems to boil down to the revenue from higher tax rates somehow magically causes debt to disappear while the same level of revenue from lower tax rates causes massive deficits. But then you undermine your whole argument by saying that even with tax cuts the effective rate was nearly the same.
Your constant appeals to the authority of being an economist and 'most people who have studied economics' lead me to doubt your residence in either camp.
I didn't call you a rude pig; rather a rude pRig.

J Jo| 1.21.09 @ 2:59PM

Please explain "the revenue created is much less than the tax collections received." I am sorry, but I don't understand what you are getting at.

Michele San Pietro| 1.21.09 @ 3:02PM

Of course, America, like any other country, needs a government that works. I hope Obama's will actually be one.

Robert Rosencrans| 1.21.09 @ 3:17PM

Bob: Do you purposely go out of your way to be insulting? It just invites insults in return. You sound like a very insecure little man who constantly comes here to bash Reagan and promote your own agenda. If that makes you happy so be it. It's a form of mental masturbation and you're good at it. I have to acknowledge that.

By the way, you've gotten me confused with someone else again. I never said that cutting taxes would lead to higher revenues. In fact, I don't believe it. I think it works for various reasons, but the impact of tax cuts and additional revenue is debatable. In any event, I never said it.

As far as the spending, let's go to your Treasury figures. By the way, the Bureau of Public Debt maintains a separate web site and apparently has some discrepancies in their figures compared to the Treasury Department web site figures. But let's look at spending as posted at the Treasury web site.

According to the Treasury figures, Jimmy Carter doubled the national debt and he did it in four years. Under some of the definitions here, that would make him the biggest spender of all time in terms of doubling the debt in the least amount of time.

Alan Brooks| 1.21.09 @ 3:31PM

Bob cant get it that Reagan and even 41 helped end cold war by shortening its duration before America went fiscally belly up.
but at least bob isnt a demented witless losel (not lozel) cad like Jeremiah.

Bob's Brain On Thought| 1.21.09 @ 3:42PM

Your desire for people to feel the pain because that will cause them to re-consider paying for projects doesn't seem to be based on any logic or data.

You try to back up your other points with links, but this point seems to be based on how you think people will react to having to pay higher taxes.

Can you support your premise that raising taxes will somehow stop the pols from spending more than what comes in?

I don't think it is necessarily so, especially in light of the fact that such a high percentage of voters who don't pay income taxes will not be hurt by increases.

I also assume that the same politicians you describe, that only want to get re-elected, will never raise income taxes on the non-payers, out of fear of losing their seats.

I think the problem is that too many of our fellow citizens look to the govt and pols for the cure for what ails them.

That's the mindset that has to change. Unless a critical mass of voters are being pounded by taxes, the situation will remain the same.

Meaning in a Bob world of higher taxes, the politicians will still borrow beyond whatever revenue is raised in order to buy votes and meet perceived needs.

Ammo Guy| 1.21.09 @ 3:49PM

S.L. Toddard, so just out of curiosity, was President Clinton responsible for the initial bombing of the WTC because it occurred when he was President? And, had the towers tumbled then as was hoped for by terrorists thankfully lacking knowledge of brisance and building engineering, would the blood of thousands who would have died that day been on his hands? Despite the fact that the planning for this outrage occurred before he took the oath of office?

Bob| 1.21.09 @ 3:53PM

Brian, the inflation rate since the 80's was also higher than previous years which is the main reason the GDP grew faster. Look at the GDP in real dollars and you'll see what I mean.

By the way, I've never said that higher taxes lead to decreased debt, only that ultra low taxes leads to higher debt. At some place there is an optimum value where there is a balance between tax rates and debt levels. I don't have any idea where that is. But we do know that the supply side applications of Reagan and Bush led to the greatest debt increases.

With regard to the national debt, there has been a consistent increase by both Democrats and Republicans and you are absolutely correct about Carter -- he was a disaster (which is why I voted for Reagan).

By the way, Robert, I completely bought into supply side when I was younger. Back in the 80's and early 90's, I thought the concept had merit. I began to question the theory in the mid to late 90's and finally rejected it in the early 2000's. I cannot look at the results and believe that Reaganomics really worked.

Alan Brooks| 1.21.09 @ 4:03PM

what about Reaganomics bankrupting the soviet empire and shortening the cold war? cant you give partial credit? isnt hindsight 20 20? is pedantic philosophy necessary? whats wrong w/ brevity?

at least bob isnt weasel like Jer (left out weasel in other comments)

Alan Brooks| 1.21.09 @ 4:07PM

you wont condescend to admit Reaganomics accelerated end of cold war?
you wont get off effete lib high horse for a moment? am i being too rational? uppity?
am i being a smarta--?

Bob| 1.21.09 @ 4:23PM

Alan, Reagan deserves huge credit for his military policy, and for that reason, I think he was one of the better Presidents. By the way, I've said that before. He deserves a lot of credit for defeating the Soviet Union and for also giving us hope after the disastrous Carter years. However, in retrospect, I don't think his economic policy accelerated this process. He could have done the same thing and not given us so much debt. But again, I'm dealing with 20/20 hindsight because I agreed with his economic plans at that time. The actual economic results are what changed my mind. In fact, I also voted for Bush1. By the time Bush2 came around we had enough data to determine he was wrong.

Alan, there is a difference between using 20/20 hindsight and knowing this at the time. I still believe that Reagan was the far better option at that time.

Alan Brooks| 1.21.09 @ 4:25PM

everyone KNOWS excessive tax cutting is counterproductive, you overeducated blockhead.

well, at least he's not as dense as my family. or Jer.

Robert Rosencrans| 1.21.09 @ 4:25PM

It's superfluous to point out the spending habits of any one President when you consider the United States has 72 trillion in unfunded liabilities.

It reminds me of a story that goes like this: A man tells a group in the forest who are cutting trees down that they are in the wrong forest. The group replies, "Who cares? We are making progress!"

That little clip reminds me of the bailout, and those who keep harping on irrelevant minutiae.

J Jo| 1.21.09 @ 4:31PM

I think supply side economics worked too well and is now working in reverse. To the point that it is destroying massive amount of wealth and passing along the destruction to the poor.

I'd say most everyone was better off in the 80s and 90s as credit grew and more people became homeowners. Then as home prices took off more people could "afford" to live a better lifestyle complete with the latest in tech gadgets and a never ending supply of new cars and nicer houses.

Now everyone who overleveraged themselves, whether it be with $20,000 or $20 million, is in serious trouble. It is only the debt free or nearly debt free that will escape significant pain.

Alan Brooks| 1.21.09 @ 4:31PM

alrighty, apology,
i dont mind you, bob; its that Jer, he should have "talked" to my parents (and though they deserved to talk to Jer, i love them more than anyone).

but look, cant we just admit that Reagan did well and leave it at that? its the past,
we must move vorwarts, pwogwess.. be Futur-orientid; proud of our wittle selfs...

Alan Brooks| 1.21.09 @ 4:38PM

and yes we know about the unfunded twillions in liabilitwees.

so what do we d000000000000000000. round and round and round. just like life itself.
nowhere fast. no point in 'communicating' (barf gag retch heave)

Bob| 1.21.09 @ 4:47PM

Alan, there is never a need to apologize -- I think the back and forth is relevant and worthwhile. I like people with strong views -- even Ruth.

Regarding Reagan, let me say one more time, I thought he was one of the better Presidents, but not in the "greatest" category for a longshot primarily because of how is economic policy turned out.

I don't talk about Reagan to demean him, but to look at what he did and learn from it. He started the process of very large increases in debt and now they are choking us. Therefore, we should not repeat his mistakes and overdo tax cuts.

The problem is that most people here put him on such a high pedestal that they think that he could do no wrong. The only way to combat that is to bring him down a notch.

Thom| 1.21.09 @ 5:21PM

Bob, did you adjust all the figures you used to make your conclusions for inflation, tax bracket creep and the percentage of the population paying income taxes now vs. in the 1970s? I’ve been in the same field (non union) doing the same kind of job for 35 years. My income doubled under Carter (4 years) but my marginal tax bracket creep combined with double digit inflation wiped out most of my gain. By the time Reagan left office I had doubled my income again and had a net gain in my discretionary income because Reagan indexed marginal tax rates to inflation. From Reagan’s last year to now I’ve doubled my income again but there is still bracket creep eating into my gains. I’m certainly better off now than in 1976 in net terms but over 40% of my income does go to the government directly and another 20 or so percent via that embedded in the cost of goods and services I buy. I suspect that if you compare pre Reagan to after Reagan you will find the actual tax burden of those actually paying the bulk of the burden today had risen a lot while the half paying little or nothing in income taxes are the bulk of the spending increases offsetting revenue growth. I know the IRS data. I know who pays and who doesn’t. I’ve got my 1968 1040 tax return where I paid Federal and State taxes on a $1.10 an hour part time job that lasted only a few months. I strongly suspect the biggest cause of a flat revenue trend is tens of millions of able bodied people not paying for what they get from a shrinking tax payer based (relative to the total income age producing population). Just a thought.

Robert Rosencrans| 1.21.09 @ 5:56PM

Blaming Reagan for government spending is kind of humorous and indicates you detoured around and forgot all about LBJ and the Great Society. Then go back to FDR and the New Deal.

Thom| 1.21.09 @ 6:14PM

Robert, that's a dirty little secret no one wants to do the math on....In about 9 years I'm going to become part of the 78 million boomer welfare recipients (and part of the problem by some accounts). No one wants to grasp you can’t keep shifting the tax burden (on the front end with income taxes) and back end with SS’s “regressive” distribution of wealth to a smaller percentage of payers as a percentage of our population. You are going to scare people if you keep bringing up that New Deal and Great Society stuff….

S.L. Toddard| 1.21.09 @ 6:23PM

"S.L. Toddard, so just out of curiosity, was President Clinton responsible for the initial bombing of the WTC because it occurred when he was President?"

More accurately he was not responsible for the attack itself, he was responsible for the failure to prevent it. Now I ask you, do you credit Bush with "keeping us safe" since 9/11 and, as one who takes that position categorically must, blame him for failing to prevent the 9/11 attack? It is, I think, self-evident that it is illogical, inconsistent and hypocritical to credit a president for preventing an attack (especially when the only evidence that he did is that one has not occurred, but that is neither here nor there) without placing responsibility on that same president when he fails to prevent an attack.

In other words, if one credits Bush with "keeping us safe" since 9/11, one must hold him responsible for FAILING to "keep us safe" *on* 9/11, the worst terrorist attack in history. That is a truism that must be accepted by anyone claiming - again, without any real evidence - that Bush has "kept us safe" since 9/11.

S.L. Toddard| 1.21.09 @ 6:25PM

"Blaming Reagan for government spending is kind of humorous and indicates you detoured around and forgot all about LBJ and the Great Society. Then go back to FDR and the New Deal."

And then jump from LBJ and FDR to their ideological soul-mate and fellow big-gov't, liberal hawk George W Bush, perhaps the least "conservative" of the three.

Alan Brooks| 1.21.09 @ 6:48PM

Libtarddard,
Dubya tried to buy off his opposition, to get support after 9-11, everyone from commie faggots to libertarian govt statists such as Ira Kessel.

Reagan is put on pedestal because of successors, naturally. weve been around & around on this. again & again.

alrighty, so then what.

Todd| 1.21.09 @ 6:49PM

How perverse is it that the leftist blame Reagan for deficits of their creation with the Great Society and the New Deal? Bob, if you have any intellectual creditability, you would stop blaming deficits on Reagan and put the blame on FDR and LBJ for the creation of unsustainable government programs that are uncontrollable and are pushing the country into bankruptcy in the coming decades. And what happened when Bush tried to reform social security? Have we forgotten Al Gore's lying about Bush stealing money from the lock box of social security from what is really just a giant ponzi scheme? Put that in your pipe and smoke it

Thom| 1.21.09 @ 6:50PM

S.L. Toddard, about two thirds of the Federal budget is entitilements enacted under FDR and LBJ. No other spending increases over time adjusted for inflation can even approach either of these alone. Bush had another 20 odds days of Clinton's last budget to work with before he would have had any budget increases to do anything about what was taking place in the air on 911. It took an act of Congress after 9/11 to unlock what kept the CIA and FBI data from being put to effective use and only that would have provided any chance to stop 9/11 via the government. Several attempts at similar if not worse have been documented and stopped after Bush put his plans into effect. Clinton did absolutely nothing for eight years after the first attempt at the Twin Towers to take the battle to the enemy. Only in a perfect world does everything goes one sided or as planned but Clinton did nothing for eight years to address the matter. If the first attack had been successful upwards of 20-25,000 would have died just from that. That realization would have pushed any rational person to action rather than reaction. Obama is going to dismantle what has worked so far and he has the budget to do what ever he feels is needed so he isn't trapped with someone else's budget shortfall and legal roadblocks like Bush was. It is on his head now.

Ammo Guy| 1.21.09 @ 8:43PM

S.L. Toddard, so to continue our conversation, do you then hold FDR responsible for failing to prevent the attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 Dec 1941? And, if so, is he then also responsible for the American involvement in the war that followed, at a cost of 400,000 lives? Not trying to start a fight, just curious that's all.

JCB| 1.21.09 @ 8:52PM

Obama said he will negotiate with the Islamist terrorists. That's the foreign policy of Neville Chamberlain.

Obama wants to take from the productive and successful and give to the indolent. He wants to print hundreds of billions of dollars for handouts. That is the domestic policy of Robert Mugabe.

Great. The foreign policy of Chamberlain and the domestic policy of Mugabe.

This is change that's good for us?

Ran| 1.21.09 @ 8:53PM

"[Mr.] Ferrara, do you have an economics degree? You need to study the subject. You seem to lack the mathematical discipline to be taken seriously on this issue." [sic!]

The gentleman who uttered the comment above has been caught telling lies on this site several times. One would think he - who has even been banned from one TAS columnist's comments section - would show some self-restraint on the matter of ad-hominem comment.

Speaking of dishonest representations...
"By the way, I've never said that higher taxes lead to decreased debt, only that ultra low taxes leads to higher debt. At some place there is an optimum value where there is a balance between tax rates and debt levels. I don't have any idea where that is. But we do know that the supply side applications of Reagan and Bush led to the greatest debt increases."

The increased borrowing under Demo and RINO Congresses - to pay for shiny new and inherited entitlement spending - compounded by the failure to reduce existing spending - had lead to the Red ink.

Granted, it's still unproven theory that net income (or debt) results from differentials between the "income" and "expense" columns... meaning that the balance point is fairly straightforward. It would require an antiquated mathematical technique called "arithmetic".

S.L. Toddard| 1.22.09 @ 7:32AM

"S.L. Toddard, so to continue our conversation, do you then hold FDR responsible for failing to prevent the attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 Dec 1941? And, if so, is he then also responsible for the American involvement in the war that followed, at a cost of 400,000 lives? Not trying to start a fight, just curious that's all."

I know you're not, and yes I do hold FDR, whom I consider the worst president in American history, responsible for failing to prevent, and failing to avoid, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. I do not believe FDR *wanted* to avoid a confrontation with Japan. But I do not hold him responsible for our entering WWII in the same way I hold Bush responsible for Iraq, as in WWII we fought against a literal existential threat, and in Iraq there was no threat whatsoever, existential or otherwise, nor did any evidence - faulty or otherwise - hint at one. Would you now please answer my question:

Now I ask you, do you credit Bush with "keeping us safe" since 9/11 and conversely blame him for failing to prevent the 9/11 attack? Or do you believe it is not inconsistent to do one and not the other?

S.L. Toddard| 1.22.09 @ 7:37AM

"S.L. Toddard, about two thirds of the Federal budget is entitilements enacted under FDR and LBJ"

Which were embraced, supported, extended and expanded greatly by Bush and the GOP, who had absolute power over the executive and legislative branches for six years.

If a man believes in small, un-intrusive federal government, fiscal responsibility, the importance of American tradition and culture, the Rule of Law, and the Constitution of the United States - in short, if one is a conservative - then one cannot in good conscience support the GOP, who fight tooth and nail against these things.

Ammo Guy| 1.22.09 @ 8:31AM

S.L. Toddard, now to carry our conversation even further, would you hold JFK responsible for the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion since he was persuaded to execute an operational plan he inherited from a previous administration of a different party?

Bob| 1.22.09 @ 8:39AM

So, Ran, I challenge you to tell me where I've lied. You, on the other hand are a simpleton who doesn't understand economics. You do seem to know more about religion, however, and I'll admit that.

For everyone's benefit, what the religious intolerant and bigot Ran is talking about is that I remembered as a child studying the torah and having my Rabbi tell me that some of it was written in Aramaic. Ran, who obviously spends more time in the temple than studying economics, pointed out that it was all in Hebrew. I pointed out that others thought that some of it was also written in Aramaic and provided this link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_Aramaic

I am not a biblical scholar but remember what I learned 50 years ago. If he considers that lying, he is just another intolerant social conservative.

As to his moronic understanding of economics, he is a simpleton to believe that it is just a matter of arithmetic. That you can wave a magic wand and reduce spending -- something that neither Democratic or Republican administrations have been able to do.

The point remains, supply side theories have increased debt more than any other effect in recent history. That is just fact.

Robert Vollowitz| 1.22.09 @ 8:44AM

Todd, you can certainly blame the creation of entitlement programs like social security and medicare for the exploding budget -- that is absolutely correct. However, FDR and LBJ made a serious attempt to pay for these programs, and Reagan and Bush did not. It is when you don't pay for these programs that you create a deficit. So, Todd, do you want to get completely rid of social security and medicare? I think they need serious revision and adjustments for the changing population, but the idea of a basic safety net makes some sense to me.

S.L. Toddard| 1.22.09 @ 9:46AM

"S.L. Toddard, now to carry our conversation even further..."

What conversation? A conversation is a two way street. This is an interrogation.

I ask you, for the third time, do you credit Bush with "keeping us safe" since 9/11 and conversely blame him for failing to prevent the 9/11 attack? Or do you believe it is not inconsistent to do one and not the other?

S.L. Toddard | 1.22.09 @ 9:49AM

"So, Todd, do you want to get completely rid of social security and medicare?"

Are you talking to me? Yes, I do. They are unconstitutional, which is to say an illegal and unsanctioned expansion of federal power. They should be eliminated entirely and, per the 10th Amendment, left to the states to work out for themselves whether they consider such programs worthwhile and how they should be implemented.

Ammo Guy| 1.22.09 @ 12:05PM

S.L. Toddard, well if I lived in your clear-cut world of black and white answers, I would have replied earlier, but I was attempting to set the stage for a response that might make sense to you. In any event, I don't hold President Bush responsible for failing to prevent the second attack on the WTC any more than I hold President Clinton responsible for failing to prevent the first attack on the WTC...mainly due to the difficulties inherent in any transition of government between different parties. I know you mocked my 35 years of federal service in a different thread, but it has taught me a few things. This is my 5th such transition and each has been an interesting exercise taking varying lengths of time to complete. It would be rash for a newly arrived administration to fall upon plans crafted by the previous occupants of those offices and attempt to execute without some consideration and contemplation, as President Kennedy ruefully discovered at the Bay of Pigs. The one thing President Bush hoped he would have was time...and that turned out not to be the case. He lost over a month of transition time due to the Florida recount and a number of his key nominees were not confirmed in a timely manner; for example, the DEPSECDEF was not on board until March 2001 and the number 3 man at Justice was not able to take office until 11 June 2001. Cabinet secretaries are important, but it is their deputies that make things happen and it takes a while for them to become acclimated to their surroundings.

Furthermore, in each instance, we were up against threats we had not seen nor were expecting. A truck bomb bringing down a building was something that happened overseas, not in the U.S.; likewise with suicidal maniacs armed only with box cutters flying commercial passenger aircraft into buildings. It is what action a President takes after such an attack that interests me. President Clinton considered it a criminal affair and proceeded accordingly (of course, we'll never know what he would have done had they succeeded in bringing down a tower or two). President Bush considered it an act of war and the rest is history - to include keeping us safe in the homeland since 9/11/2001.

Nick| 1.22.09 @ 12:31PM

Ammo Guy,

Outstanding resitation of the facts. I also never blamed Bubba for the '93 WTC bombing or the Waco raid for that matter. I blame him for his responce to both.

The pervert-in-chief prosecuted the bombers. As a result of the trial AQ learned the stuctural plans of the WTC & what it would take to bring them down.

We all know what happened at Waco after the ill conceived raid. A perfect example of how liberals handle a crisis.

I would blame the Bay of Pigs on President Kennedy's incompetence. He was aware the NYT knew about the invasion before hand and it didn't occure to him Castro might know? He went ahead as planned and many brave men died.

S.L. Toddard | 1.22.09 @ 12:56PM

Well, I can't say you fail to deliver. Your logic excuses any president of any responsibility in the failure to prevent an attack on the "homeland" while giving credit for any lack of an attack to the president, despite any evidence that an attack was actually prevented by anything that president did. It is, to say the least, inconsistent in the extreme, and to give a president a grace period of nearly a year before holding him responsible for our protection - I'm not even sure what to say to that idea. The absence of an attack is, of course, not evidence that an attack was prevented any more than the absence of my being abducted by aliens today is evidence that I actively thwarted alien abductors.

The best argument against Bush's responsibility for his failure to protect us is quite simply that terrorist attacks, by their very nature, are extremely difficult - some times impossible - to predict or prevent, especially in a free society. As such I don't believe the Bay of Pigs or Pearl Harbor are in any way analogous to the WTC attacks under Clinton and Bush. The Bay of Pigs was an ill-conceived disaster done poorly and for the wrong reasons. And Pearl Harbor was the sort of thing FDR pined for: a legitimate excuse to plunge the US into a european war the American people wanted no part of.

As for this: "President Bush considered it an act of war and the rest is history" - I couldn't agree more. A sad, tragicomic chapter in our long slow decline from a constitutional Republic to an imperial oligarchy.

S.L. Toddard | 1.22.09 @ 12:59PM

Also, I will agree with Nick in giving credit for your response. I find fault with your logic and conclusions, but it was an extremely deft, articulate defense all the same.

S.L. Toddard| 1.22.09 @ 1:01PM

And that's not to imply that you're seeking my praise or anything like that.

Ammo Guy| 1.22.09 @ 1:40PM

I was certainly not seeking your praise...nor any one else's...merely a thoughtful, polite conversation between adults. I only mentioned the Bay of Pigs fiasco to point out the folly of carrying out plans that you did not craft before you fully understood the implications thereof. The operational plans or threat assessments that were left behind by President Clinton's staff and political appointees had to be carefully studied by their successors to understand how they came into being...and that is not always easy to do. I remember wandering around Bosnia in February 1997 assessing the ammo storage situations at Task Force Eagle base camps; I would read the plan crafted a year earlier by someone else and, for the life of me, could rarely figure out how or why they situated the basic load ammo holding area where they did. I assumed they did the best they could at that time with what they had and rewrote all their plans to reflect the situation as I found it then - to include lengthy explanations of my assumptions, risk assessments, and explosive safety calculations with a phone number and email address for the next poor schnook to call in case he couldn't figure out why I did what I did; that avenue is not always available to those called upon to follow up previous best faith efforts. Sorry to be so wordy (that previous sentence was worthy of Victor Hugo, but I digress), but it's not an easy explanation or excuse for any new president who presides over a catastrophe shortly after his inauguration. I wouldn't give any president a grace period of a year, but President Bush was in office less than 8 months when 9/11 occurred with many of his key advisors for much less time than that. I wish it was simpler than that, but I've been wrong so many times in my career that I'm humbled by the experience and always try to cut the other guy some slack because I know what he went thru.

S.L. Toddard | 1.22.09 @ 2:24PM

Yeah I don't think any of that really changes the fact that the president, starting the day he takes office, is ultimately responsible for the security of the United States, and that therefore he is responsible for failures related to such, period. The only mitigating factor that I think is legitimate is that, as I said, terrorism by its nature is almost impossible to predict or prevent entirely in a free society. Bush's solution to that conundrum was to make us less free. Whether or not that, or any other measure he took, had the effect of preventing another attack is entirely unknown. I'm seeing on CNN right now that Obama is, at least, reversing the damage done by Bush somewhat by closing the lawless torture camp in Guantanamo and re-establishing the Rule of Law vis a vis torture in general by banning it (shouldn't have to ban something that is already illegal but such is the state of the country his predecessor left him) and requiring that the Army field manual be used as the guide for terror interrogations. Thank God for that, at least.

Michele San Pietro| 1.22.09 @ 3:12PM

Of course, President Reagan was very important in ending the cold war, together with the Pope John Paul II and Mikhail Gorbachev.

Nick| 1.22.09 @ 3:20PM

Mr. Toddard,

Let's review some history.

After algore tried to steal the 2000 election, President Bush had a 50/50 senate for about 10 seconds. Then jumpin' Jim Jeffords put the senate in democrat contol.

Daschle, Kennendy, Leahy, etc. went on to slow down all of the president's appointments. Remember how long it took to confirm John Ashcroft? I think it was late April/early May (I don't feel like looking it up). That left the incompetent Eric Holder in charge in the meantime. Remember all the idiotic charges from the liberals, ala Babs Boxer?

As we all enjoyed our summer and had to endure the Chadra Levy spectacle from cable news, the democrats obstructed the president's key lower appointments, as Ammo Guy said earlier. On the morning of September 11th, 2001 some spots were still open.

Steering the federal bureaucracy is worse than steering the Titanic or the U.S.S. Nimitz.

Do you believe President Bush knew boxcutters were allowed on commercial flights the morning of 9/11, thanks to bubba's FAA? Do you think President Bush's FAA chairman even knew? Louis Freeh left as head of the FBI the day before. Was the "wall of separation" between the FBI & CIA supposed to be torn down in one day?

Mr. Toddard, you believe Mr. Bush is responsible for the 9/11 attacks because he hadn't fixed the devestation caused by 8 years of prez. pervert in the 7 months since he took the oath. That is simplistic.

Did the Bush administration (what was in place at the time) treat gobal terrorism with enough urgency, no I don't think so. Even though they were doing somethings to change policy, they were doing it in the typical bureaucratic way. It should have been as much a priority as getting the tax cuts through was.

To be simplistic myself: It would be like blaming a new fire chief for the town burning down, if the old fire chief broke all the fire trucks and let the firemen get fat and lazy.

Ammo Guy| 1.22.09 @ 3:46PM

"Yeah I don't think any of that really changes the fact that the president, starting the day he takes office, is ultimately responsible for the security of the United States, and that therefore he is responsible for failures related to such, period." Y'know I was kinda inclined to give President Obama some time to stretch his legs, so to speak, before I began blaming him for any terrorist attack upon our soil, but I guess others are not so lenient. And, knowing what attacks might have been prevented is problematic at best, thought foiled plots to blow up the American consulate in Karachi, Pakistan; to fly airplanes into the towers of Canary Wharf in London; and to fly a hijacked airplane into the Library Tower in Los Angeles, come to mind...even though no one recalls such successes. I think if the 19 hijackers had been detained on the morning of 9/11 simply because they tried to board planes with box cutters, it would have been only a minor story on the local news until their attorneys played the Middle Eastern race card. At that point they probably would have been deported and the threat cycle would have started once again until they finally probed the right seam in our defenses. Once again, do we always have to wait for the first blow? I often wonder what FDR would have done if we had discovered the location of the Imperial Japanese Navy on 6 Dec? Sally forth to do battle? Send a strongly worded diplomatic message to Tojo? Hide under the desk? Heck, it's lonely at the top, isn't it?

S.L. Toddard| 1.22.09 @ 3:56PM

Wow. The hero-worship in here is really extreme. Nick, here, believes that 7 months into Bush's presidency he was still not ultimately responsible for American security - Bill Clinton still was. How bizarre. Imagine if it was actually the case that the president had as many months as he cared to take to get nice and cozy in the job before assuming responsibility for our security? What an exotic, alien notion.

Anyway, in the United States the president, starting the day he takes office, is ultimately responsible for the security of the United States.

I do not, I should say, believe that Bush's glaring failure to keep us safe was his worst failure. Nor do I believe it was his failure in judgment in deciding to conquer Iraq absent any indication - true, untrue, misleading, faulty or otherwise - of any clear and present threat, a failure which led to the deaths of over four thousand Americans (one might say Bush has more American blood on his hands than Osama bin Laden). No, I believe his most glaring, and most dangerous, failure was his failure to "protect and defend the Constitution of the United States". This particular failure was worse than any other because it was in point of fact a betrayal. The loss of thousands of lives is a tragedy, true, but the betrayal of the American way, the assault on our laws and liberty, is a thousand times worse, as we Americans value our liberties over our lives.

I am happy to say - again, as I noted above - that Barack Obama, against all of my suspicions, has begun reversing the damage, restoring the Rule of Law, our constitutional protections and shredding the shroud of secrecy under which the Bush administration schemed. I am almost shocked that this change - this return to Constitutionality - was done by a *liberal* - the historical enemies of the Constitution, and will surely be condemned by self-professed "conservatives", who historically value the Rule of Law.

'Tis a topsy-turvy world, is it not?

S.L. Toddard | 1.22.09 @ 3:57PM

My above post is a response to Nick, not Ammo Guy.

S.L. Toddard | 1.22.09 @ 4:01PM

"I often wonder what FDR would have done if we had discovered the location of the Imperial Japanese Navy on 6 Dec? Sally forth to do battle? Send a strongly worded diplomatic message to Tojo? Hide under the desk? Heck, it's lonely at the top, isn't it? "

I think he would have done exactly what he did - nothing. He was desperate for a casus belli, for anything that would up-end the long traditional and honorable American hostility towards interventionism.

Ammo Guy| 1.22.09 @ 4:23PM

While I agree he was intent on getting us into the war at some point (witness all his secret machinations with Churchill and the BSC in New York City in 1940, more than a year before Pearl Harbor), I still can't bring myself to believe that he would be so callous as to allow an attack of that magnitude upon American soil - if he knew the exact details - but I guess I'm just a hopeless romantic. Of course, for many years it was believed that Winnie allowed a horrendous air raid on Coventry to take place unopposed because he was afraid that otherwise Ultra might be revealed; of course, that tale may well be apocryphal, but we tend to believe it because of what we know of Churchill. Too bad neither he or FDR are around to answer the questions, but perhaps there are things we don't want to know for sure.

Nick| 1.22.09 @ 4:56PM

Did you even read what I wrote?

I clearly stated President Bush didn't act with enough urgency. Hence he shares some of the responsibilty. If that's hero worship, OK.

And the senate democrats who obstructed the confirmation process for purely partisan reasons deserve some blame also.

But it was prez. STD who spent EIGHT YEARS breaking our defences, thereby making it easier for 19 men to hijack planes with boxcutters. Yes he deserves most of the blame. And the 42% and 48% of the electorate that voted for him, thanks morons.

Somehow I don't think, if we wake up to a terrorist attack tomorrow morning Mr. Toddard, you will be on this site putting all the blame on "the one".
You'll put all the blame on Mr. Bush. I could be wrong though, if you have any intellectual integrity.

As for the "Bush lied us into war" diatribe, can we get one thing straight here. SADDAM HUSSIEN'S OWN GENERALS THOUGHT THEY HAD WMD STOCKPILES!! If Saddam's own generals didn't know he was lying, HOW THE HELL WAS PRESIDENT BUSH SUPPOSED TO? I guess when a president is given conflicting intelligence, he's supposed to give the psycotic dictator the benefit of the doubt, huh? And play dice with all our lives at the same time. Ohhh sorry, craps, you lose.

Nick| 1.22.09 @ 5:28PM

I'm with you. I used to believe FDR definitely knew the attack was coming and did nothing about it.

Then I heard the officer who was on duty that morning explain how he took the call from the radar operator who saw the attack wave coming in. The officer knew a flight of B-17's was due that morning and assumed that was the radar blip.

All these years later he was still shook up about it. He has probably wondered "what if?" for the last 60+ years, poor guy.

Like 9/11, all it takes is 8 years of liberal democrat governance, slashing the defense budget, and complacency for the unthinkable to happen.

Thom| 1.22.09 @ 6:02PM

S.L. Toddard said, "Which were embraced, supported, extended and expanded greatly by Bush and the GOP, who had absolute power over the executive and legislative branches for six years. " Try again. The GOP did not embrace either FDRs plans or LBJs. They had to power to stop them. The Bush expansion of entitlements is a tiny, tiny fraction of FDR, LBJs New Deal and Great Society programs annual cost. It isn't Bush's tens of trillions of unfunded maindates that are going to start hitting the beach in about 8 years.

Thom| 1.22.09 @ 6:39PM

"I often wonder what FDR would have done if we had discovered the location of the Imperial Japanese Navy on 6 Dec? It doesn’t matter what FDR would have done if the Japanese attack fleet had been found on the 6th. We would have still been at war on the 10th due to the attacks at Guam and the Philippines. If detected, the Japanese fleet probably would have withdrawn untouched. If they didn’t and we sortie our WWI ear battleship force with no naval air force protection out and the Japanese intercepted them, you would get what happened off Singapore to the Prince of Wales and Repulse in spades. The entire Battleship force could easily have been destroyed at sea by six carriers worth of their best naval attack forces. Pearl Harbor was about the best we were going to get wacked if they struck first under the circumstances. A twenty knot force would have no chance to withdrawn once engaged and no way to close on a fast carrier force if it pursued. We had no forces to prevent what happened in the Philippines with or without Pearl Harbor. We were grossly outmatched in Dec 1941 in the Pacific.

S.L. Toddard| 1.23.09 @ 7:55AM

"As for the "Bush lied us into war" diatribe, can we get one thing straight here. SADDAM HUSSIEN'S OWN GENERALS THOUGHT THEY HAD WMD STOCKPILES!!"

At this point we know there was plenty of intelligence and significant (though not unanimous) consensus in the intelligence community that cast doubt on much of the faulty evidence Bush purposely focused on, and that there was significant reason to believe there were no WMDs any more. That's not really even in question. Regardless, I worded what I said very carefully to address that there *was* evidence, however faulty and discredited, that indicated Saddam might have WMD's. What I said was that he pushed America into war "absent any indication - true, untrue, misleading, faulty or otherwise - of any *clear and present threat*". What I'm speaking to is the very clear fact that even the faulty evidence on which Bush purposely focused indicated NO clear and present danger from Iraq. The mere existence of WMDs is, rather obviously, not evidence of a clear and present danger. Plenty of countries have WMDs - the UK, Israel etc - and we don't conquer them because there is no indication that they plan to use those weapons against *us*. No one ever made a convincing case - because there was none to be made - that Iraq was planning to use their (non-existent) WMDs against the United States. The mere possession of WMD's might indicate a possible, hypothetical future threat but it certainly is not evidence of a "clear and present danger" or an impending attack - the only legitimate justifications for a preemptive attack. This is why the Iraq war cannot be classified as a "preemptive war", it was a "preventive war" which, under international law as constructed and made binding by the United States, is indistinguishable from "agressive war", the most egregious war crime there is.

S.L. Toddard | 1.23.09 @ 8:19AM

"Somehow I don't think, if we wake up to a terrorist attack tomorrow morning Mr. Toddard, you will be on this site putting all the blame on "the one"."

This is a really good point, Nick. Although, I think, you're basing it partly on the idea that I am an Obamaphilic liberal, which I am not. I did not vote for The O. Still, though, if there was a terrorist attack on Obama's second day in office could anyone lay all the blame on him? I think you're right in that it would be unfair in a very real way, so it's not cut and dried. Again, a good point.

But the second (or first) day in office is one thing. Let me ask you, Nick (and "Ammo G", a name which I think you should adopt should you attempt to break into the gangsta-rap industry):

If America were to be subject to a devastating terrorist attack *next September* you would not hold Obama responsible? You would lay the blame for it on President Bush?

I will tell you this much - if we were to be hit by a terrorist attack *next September* I would hold Obama entirely responsible for the security failure. 100%. But this blame would be mitigated, as I believe it is for Bush, by the fact that, as I've said multiple times, terrorist attacks in a free society are extremely difficult - and can be impossible - to prevent. That is a danger that we, as a free people, accept as the price of Liberty.

Ammo Guy| 1.23.09 @ 10:17AM

As always, it would depend upon the circumstances. If the attack was led by someone released from Gitmo under President Obama’s policies that would be one thing. If it was an imaginative, unpredictable, new type of attack whose planning had been percolating for years amongst the terrorist cognoscenti and only happened to come to fruition early in the Obama term, I might feel differently. Let’s hope and pray such a thing does not happen during any president’s term in office, but, if it does, check back with me for my opinion at that time.

Meanwhile, if the French had moved against the Germans in 1936 when the Rhineland was remilitarized, would that have been a case of “prevention” or “preemption?”

S.L. Toddard| 1.23.09 @ 10:32AM

"Meanwhile, if the French had moved against the Germans in 1936 when the Rhineland was remilitarized, would that have been a case of “prevention” or “preemption?”

The U.S. had not, I believe (though I could be wrong), international law defining either at that point in time. Regardless, absent evidence of an impending attack or, at least, a *clear* and *present* danger, an attack cannot be considered "preemptive".

Also, using the rise of Nazi Germany as a basis on which to justify US foreign policy is spurious at best. One can justify any war of aggression on that basis.

S.L. Toddard| 1.23.09 @ 10:34AM

That first sentence should read "The U.S. had not, I believe (though I could be wrong), helped to construct and agreed to be bound by international law ...etc"

S.L. Toddard| 1.23.09 @ 11:35AM

Coincidentally (and fortuitously), constitutional scholar Glenn Greenwald today speaks to one of the issues we've discussed recently, with his usual impeccable logic and brilliant insight:

"The crime for which Omar Abdel Rahman was convicted and for which he's currently serving a life sentence in Colorado is the February 26, 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, of which Rahman was the alleged "mastermind." That terrorist attack took place just seven weeks after Bill Clinton was inaugurated, but after that attack -- to use the Beltway parlance -- Clinton kept us safe, for the rest of his presidency. No more foreign Terrorist attacks on the Homeland. It wasn't until Clinton left the Oval Office and George Bush became President were Islamic Terrorists able to strike the Homeland again.

Therefore, using the reasoning of Bush followers everywhere, this means that Clinton's counter-terrorism policies -- i.e.: trying accused Terrorists in civilian courts and incarcerating them in U.S. prisons -- have been proven to be extremely effective in keeping us safe (since, as any beginning student of Logic will tell you: if A precedes B, then it means that A caused B -- as in: A = "waterboarding, torture and GITMO," and B = "no Terrorist attack on U.S. soil from 2002-2008"). Using that same "logic": A = "trying Terrorists in civilian courts and imprisoning them in the U.S.," and B = "no foreign Terrorist attacks from February, 1993 through the end of the Clinton presidency."

Nick| 1.23.09 @ 2:15PM

To you and Mr. Greenwald: some might use that tortured logic, but I don't. In fact, I would say this is a very simplistic summation of the arguments used by those who defend the war on terrorists.

But I'll play your game for a minute. Your refutation of the "reasoning of Bush followers everywhere" is deeply flawed.

On Jan. 25th, 1993 a Pakistani murdered 2 CIA employees outside the Langley gate. On Feb. 16, 1993 he was charged in federal court. 10 days later the WTC was bombed. Bubba's policy didn't keep us safe.

And to get more into semantics, is not a U.S. warship (U.S.S. Cole) sovereign U.S. territory?

What about all the Americans who died at the hands of terrorists overseas between '93 and 2001? They don't count because it didn't happen here?

I'm no "Bush follower". I am a strong defender of the war on terrorists.

S.L. Toddard| 1.23.09 @ 2:32PM

"On Jan. 25th, 1993 a Pakistani murdered 2 CIA employees outside the Langley gate. On Feb. 16, 1993 he was charged in federal court. 10 days later the WTC was bombed..."

...And after that, "No more foreign Terrorist attacks on the Homeland", ergo - by Bush-follower logic - Clinton kept the homeland safe.

Believe me, I understand that the reasoning is illogical in the extreme - that's the whole point: to demonstrate the fault in that logic. Because A precedes B does NOT mean A *caused* B.

I recommend highly that you - and anyone else who cares about the rule of law and the efficacy of the "war on terror" to read the piece in its entirety:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/01/23/al_qaeda/index.html

Nick| 1.23.09 @ 2:56PM

Now can we get back to a more serious debate?

Mr. Toddard, I know you carefully allowed for faulty intelligence. My points were 1: Saddam's gernerals thought there were WMD's, so how faulty was that intel? 2: As far as the aluminum tubes, yelow cake, etc.; if the intel conflicts or isn't beyond a reasonable doubt, is the president supposed to err on the side of doing nothing?

Or when he has this set of facts in front of him:

Saddam invaded Kuwait in 1990 (their tankers were flying our flag at the time)
He was humiliated by our victory (not good in the Arab world)
He was a saddist (no need to list these acts)
To stop the war he agreed to many stipulations (the UN resolutions)
He then violated those resolutions for 12 years
He also shot at our planes for 12 years with barely any response from us
We found out our intel was flawed (his nuclear program was far more advanced than we thouhgt)
He tried to assassinate a former president
Iran had a long history of supplying Hamas and Hezz. with bombs (so why is it so hard to believe Saddam wouldn't help AQ?)
He gave the families of Arab komikazi's $25,000 to rebuild their homes
3000+ fellow Americans died in less than 2 hours

Was the president of the United States of America not to do whatever he could to get Saddam out of power or at least make sure he couldn't hit us with a WMD?

I say Saddam was a "clear and present danger".
President Bush had the UN resolutions and he used them. He also had the 2002 mid-term elections and he used them also. I for one am glad he did.

S.L. Toddard| 1.23.09 @ 3:50PM

"Was the president of the United States of America not to do whatever he could to get Saddam out of power or at least make sure he couldn't hit us with a WMD?"

What evidence was there that indicated he was planning to do that? None. There was as much evidence that Saddam was planning to launch an attack against the US as there is right now that the UK is planning to launch an attack against us. And you can SAY Saddam was a "clear and present danger" all you want - we KNOW for a LITERAL FACT that this is untrue. He was NOT a clear and present danger. He had NO WMDs. He had NO intention of attacking the United States. THESE ARE FACTS THAT ARE INARGUABLE AND UNDISPUTED.

What is disputable is what the intelligence that we had indicated. A rational person might argue that the intelligence indicated he may have posessed WMDs. A rational person might, obviously, argue otherwise. But a rational person cannot conclude that the evidence indicated an attack against the United States was imminent – there was no such evidence. A rational person cannot therefore claim that there was sufficent cause for a preemptive attack - we know for a fact that there was nothing to preempt, and no evidence at the time concluded there was.

Iraq is literally a perfect example of why preventive wars are illegal, why they are a war crime, and why this was taken as a given by all Americans until Bush came to power. It is a literally perfect argument AGAINST preventive wars. We launched a conquest against a weak third-world country who had no plans to attack us and who had no means to, with NO evidence that they were planning any sort of attack, and ended up slaughtering hundreds of thousands of innocent people, laying an entire country to waste and causing the deaths of over four thousand American soldiers - for nothing. THAT is why modern, civlized, just peoples turn to war strictly as a LAST resort – after they are attacked or when the danger of an attack is both *clear* and *present* - because war is terrible. Americans, in their extreme isolation and apathy, have forgotten that. Woe to the rest of the world.

Ammo Guy| 1.23.09 @ 3:54PM

Geez, just because I mention some other historical event does not necessarily mean I was going to use it to justify U.S. foreign policy – I’m just trying to discover the boundaries of the discussion, so to speak. I could have just as easily used the Israeli airstrikes at the onset of the Six-Day War in 1967 – preventive or preemptive?

Meanwhile, it is apparent that whatever the Clinton administration was doing in response to the first attack on the WTC, it was not discouraging Osama from planning for the second such attack…the preparations for which took place mainly during Clinton’s term in office. Osama certainly didn’t fear our legal action, or any other type of action for that matter. Remember Osama’s words in 1998 when he discussed the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu: “As I said, our boys were shocked by the low morale of the American soldier and they realized that the American soldier was just a paper tiger. He was unable to endure the strikes that were dealt to his army, so he fled, and America had to stop all its bragging and all that noise it was making in the press after the Gulf War in which it destroyed the infrastructure and the milk and dairy industry that was vital for the infants and the children and the civilians and blew up dams which were necessary for the crops people grew to feed their families. Proud of this destruction, America assumed the titles of world leader and master of the new world order. After a few blows, it forgot all about those titles and rushed out of Somalia in shame and disgrace, dragging the bodies of its soldiers. America stopped calling itself world leader and master of the new world order, and its politicians realized that those titles were too big for them and that they were unworthy of them. I was in Sudan when this happened. I was very happy to learn of that great defeat that America suffered, so was every Muslim”

There may very well be similar planning occurring at this moment, but it is being done in a cave somewhere or in a building in Pakistan under the constant threat of discovery and Hellfire from above, rather than in the relative openness enjoyed by Osama under the Taliban during the Clinton years. Indeed, recall that in his 1996 "Declaration of War Against the Americans," Osama bin Laden cited the U.S. retreat from Somalia in 1993: "You have been disgraced by Allah and you withdrew. The extent of your impotence and weaknesses has become very clear," he said. “When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse.” I prefer George Bush’s horse over Bill Clinton’s horse.

Finally, the missile attacks today in Waziristan under President Obama – preventive or preemptive?

Nick| 1.23.09 @ 4:02PM

Read Mr. Greenwald's piece, not convinced (big surprise I know). And I know what your point was. You were using the "Bush followers" logic as a club to beat them with. I just pointed out your club is made of foam. But enough of this straw man. I don't use the logic of A precedes B, A caused B, I look at the evidence.

Now Mr. Greenwald's article does point to a big mistake the Bush Administration made in fighting the war on terrorists. Anyone on Mr. Greenwald's list, at Gitmo, or on the battlefield, caught in the act of making war on the U.S. or her citizens should have been tried by courts-martial and executed. If you're designated a unlawful combatant you should be treated as such.

It would have ended all this hand-ringing we've been dealing with. And those SCOTUS decisions that weakened this country.

But they didn't do that. It was a policy that was part bubba, part "compassionate conservative".

I SEE THROUGH YOU| 1.23.09 @ 4:33PM

Obama is the most intellegent person to become PRESIDENT in America in about 50 years.

For all these right wing NAZIS and their ignorance, who is full of solution, but lack credibility. Why do they vote for the likes of thew Bush family and the likes of Palin says it all they don't know any better.

Nick| 1.23.09 @ 6:15PM

LITERAL FACT? A little redundant. Never heard of a figurative fact.

"THESE ARE FACTS THAT ARE INARGUABLE AND UNDISPUTED". Then why are you arguing them.

Why don't you argue with what I wrote, not what I didn't.
I wrote : "I say Saddam was a 'clear and present danger'." That is my opinion. Never said it was a fact.
I never wrote Saddam was planning an attack. All I said was it was reasonable he would help AQ. (After 9/11, not before). Alot of stinking liberals said that was ridiculous.
I never wrote an attack was imminent. Clear and present danger doesn't mean imminent.
Clear danger- I made my arguments for that.
Present danger- Saddam was presently violating the UN resolutions and shooting at our airplanes.

You use preemptive and preventive interchangeably. Preemptive war has always been legal. No country has to wait to get hit first. But this was a continuation of Operation Desert Storm, in effect, so neither is applicable.

When you start saying "slaughtering hundreds of thousands of innocent people..." you really loose credibility. That's the kind of diatribe that comes from Phil Donahue, Sean Penn, Cindy Sheehan and their ilk.

S.L. Toddard| 1.23.09 @ 9:02PM

"I could have just as easily used the Israeli airstrikes at the onset of the Six-Day War in 1967 – preventive or preemptive?"

So you are choosing points in history that have nothing in common, at random. Whatever for?

"Meanwhile, it is apparent that whatever the Clinton administration was doing in response to the first attack on the WTC, it was not discouraging Osama from planning for the second such attack…the preparations for which took place mainly during Clinton’s term in office. Osama certainly didn’t fear our legal action, or any other type of action for that matter"

That is a fantastic argument for taking no action.

As for Osama's enjoying our ignominious departure from Somalia, I fail to see the relevance. Of course he enjoyed it, we are his enemy. The problem isn't that Osama bin Laden was or is heartened by our repeated, seemingly never-ending disasters in interventionist adventuring, it's that we haven't learned our lessons from them, which is to cease them utterly, and to use our military as an instrument for defense.

While we are on the subject of bin Laden tirades, in bin Laden's 98 fatwa he outlined his primary grievances with the United States - the first being our sullying the muslim holy land with our troops. The second being our wars and sanctions against Iraq, which - before the hundreds of thousands we slaughtered in the most recent war - had already killed an estimated million innocent civilians. The third, our support of Israel.

We could certainly have left Iraq alone, pulled our troops out of the Arabian peninsula (which we did - are they still gone?) and finally kicked Israel off of our welfare roll and resumed looking to our own defense and welfare in the absence of the Soviet menace, settling those grievances while doing ourselves a great service in the process. If your neighbor is upset that you walk into his backyard every night to pee in his bushes, you can either stop peeing in his bushes or you can shoot him in the head and burn his house to the ground with his wife and children in it. For whatever reason, the United States always chooses the latter. After all, there is money to be made selling fire trucks, hoses, and ladders, not to mention in home re-construction.

Ammo Guy| 1.23.09 @ 11:19PM

To you, these are random points in history that have nothing in common, but to those of us actually charged with protecting this country, there are lessons to be learned from every military operation…whether ours or someone else’s. What I learned in Bosnia, I put to good use in Kosovo. This is why we have War Colleges and still study the campaigns of Lee and Napoleon, but I digress.

So, apparently we should just leave the rest of the world to its own devices, eh? Kuwait would now be Iraq’s 19th province and Saudi Arabia would be doing the bidding of Saddam so as not to become his 20th. Not our problem I guess and then Osama might have left us alone. Of course, our support for Israel may still have peeved him enough to attack us, so I suppose we abandon them as well; any subsequent slaughter of Jews would simply be the cost of not doing the world’s business. Meanwhile, watching the mass starvation in Somalia in 1992 and doing nothing is OK because I'm sure it wouldn't interest anybody outside of a small circle of friends (h/t to Phil Ochs). Call me sentimental, but my best memories of federal service were the smiles on the faces of kids trudging to school in Tuzla as we drove by in our big Humvees, but I’m sure you wouldn’t understand. Yeah, I know…if I wanted to do good, I should have joined the Peace Corps.

Papa John D| 1.24.09 @ 10:34AM

He meant what he said and is already working to that end. We'll have a government that works. Everything will be owned and run by the government and if you work, you work for the government, therefore the government will work. Duh? This man and his cronies in congress are scary.

S.L. Toddard| 1.24.09 @ 3:58PM

"To you, these are random points in history that have nothing in common, but to those of us actually charged with protecting this country, there are lessons to be learned from every military operation…whether ours or someone else’s. What I learned in Bosnia, I put to good use in Kosovo. This is why we have War Colleges and still study the campaigns of Lee and Napoleon, but I digress."

That's wonderful. And a non-sequitur. These various situations you keep referring to - Israel in 67, the Rhineland in 36, the attack on Pearl Harbor - none of them (whatever you've learned from them) are analogous vis a vis a discussion of pre-emptive vs preventive wars. I cannot imagine what the point of all that was.

"Call me sentimental, but my best memories of federal service were the smiles on the faces of kids trudging to school in Tuzla as we drove by in our big Humvees, but I’m sure you wouldn’t understand."

Oh I understand. By the way, I'm not bothered by the fact that you feel compelled to bring up your "service" in every discussion we have but I hope that *you* understand that your selectively-chosen anecdotal reminiscences are entirely immaterial and quite irrelevant to the discussion at hand, and lend zero weight to your argument. I think it's fantastic that you got to see smiley-faced, appreciative children gawking at your hummer. That's a charming memory and I hope you cherish it. But there is a flip-side to the interventionism that led to that charming scene, and it manifests itself in the grinning death rictus of hundreds of thousands of less lucky children who we have blown apart, shot, bombed, burned alive in their homes and starved to death. How very odd that you didn't select one of those memories when making your case. Perhaps you're just very lucky in your postings, and somehow have missed all the devastation we've wrought.

"Kuwait would now be Iraq’s 19th province and Saudi Arabia would be doing the bidding of Saddam so as not to become his 20th. Not our problem I guess"

Correct. Not our problem. The lives of American soldiers are too valuable to waste defending Kuwaitis, and it hardly matters who we purchase our oil from.

"and then Osama might have left us alone. Of course, our support for Israel may still have peeved him enough to attack us, so I suppose we abandon them as well;"

Abandon? No, we don't abandon them. We just cease subsidizing their wars and bulldozers and whatever else they spend our money on. To make Israel's enemies our own is quite simply absurd. We have need of a good relationship with Arabs, because they own a sizable chunk of the world's oil supply. As for Israel, we should maintain perfectly friendly relations with them, remain at peace with them and maintain open commerce with them.

"any subsequent slaughter of Jews would simply be the cost of not doing the world’s business"

I think you meant to write "Israelis". Israel is responsible for its own security, much like we ourselves are. We have filled their coffers and armed them to the teeth and have been doing so for generations. Their military dominance of the middle east is so one-sided as to be beyond question. They have the best man-for-man military in the world and a nuclear arsenal that is more than big enough to serve as a deterrent against invasion and the balls to use it. Any nation's right to exist is predicated entirely upon its ability to do so on its own. They have suckled at America's teat for long enough, and given little enough in return. When we stood in the shadow of the Soviet Empire, with our very existence at stake, with thousands of nuclear missiles pointed at our cities, our alliance with Israel served a strategic purpose. It no longer does. And as American foreign policy seeks first and foremost to protect America and help her prosper in peace, and as our relationship with Israel is damaging to those goals (it plainly does not enhance our security but does the opposite), then prudence, good sense and patriotism demand we end it.

Nick| 1.24.09 @ 4:32PM

Can I assume from your lack of response to my last post, you concede?

S.L. Toddard| 1.24.09 @ 4:42PM

"Saddam was a 'clear and present danger'" is a statement of fact. You did not say you "thought" Saddam was a clear and present danger, or that it was your *opinion* - you said he WAS. You were wrong. He was not.

Nick| 1.24.09 @ 5:20PM

Why are you misquoting me?

The full quote: "I say Saddam was a 'clear and present danger'."

That is "I SAY ....". As in my opinion.

Why is it when one is losing an argument, they always resort to deception?

Nick| 1.24.09 @ 5:24PM

Oh and by the way, I said he "WAS" because he is currently taking a dirt nap.

He is no longer a clear and PRESENT danger.

Ammo Guy| 1.24.09 @ 10:52PM

Well, let’s see – if the French had moved against the Germans in 1936, the German generals would have removed Hitler…if that’s not an example of prevention, I don’t know what is. And, the Israelis, by destroying the opposing air forces on the ground at the onset, guaranteed their victory in the war that followed…if that’s not an example of preemption, I don’t know what is. I can’t make it any simpler for you than that.

OTOH, thanks for bringing back memories of classes long ago: “Targeting Civilians 101,” “Burning Babies 201”, and some postgraduate work I did later in torturing the innocent that really got my juices flowing. “Hundreds of thousands of less lucky children who we have blown apart, shot, bombed, burned alive in their homes,” eh? Your besmirching of those in uniform who defend your country is reminiscent of Axis Sally, Tokyo Rose and Lord Haw-Haw all rolled into one and for which you should be ashamed. While your ignorance is understandable, your animus is not. You mock my service once again and if that makes you feel like the better man, feel free to pleasure yourself at my expense. At least my anecdotes are real as opposed to your statements which must be based upon the delusional ravings of Al-Jazeera or whatever other websites to which you subscribe.

You have no clue what the U.S. military does on a daily basis in over one hundred countries around the world, but if you did, I’m sure you would not be impressed. I have yet to meet a snake eater with a heart as cold as yours and for that I am thankful. Those who serve are a cut way above those who post their oh-so-clever comments on line from the safety of homes they have never had to defend on their own. Sleep well tonight my friend…for those who stand guard in your stead will protect even the ungrateful and the unworthy.

Nick| 1.24.09 @ 11:59PM

Well said, Well said. As always. I salute you and your service to our great country.

I would be willing to bet Mr. Toddard couldn't do the obstacle course, a P.T. test, a 15 mile road march, or stand a post all night while freezing.

And to all the brave souls standing guard tonight, freezing their backsides off, I say a prayer for you: "May your Guardian Angel watch over you every day and every night."

elhombrelibre| 1.25.09 @ 2:11AM

Ammo Guy, if I were you, I would not take S.L. Toddard too serious, he's either not a conservative or he's a Buchananite. The only certainty with his "ideas" for the US is that our country and the world would be a far more dangerous place if we pursued them.

elhombrelibre| 1.25.09 @ 2:15AM

S.L. Toddard, or should I say Justin Raimondo, why do you stop by this fine website?

S.L. Toddard| 1.26.09 @ 10:25AM

"Well, let’s see – if the French had moved against the Germans in 1936, the German generals would have removed Hitler…if that’s not an example of prevention, I don’t know what is. And, the Israelis, by destroying the opposing air forces on the ground at the onset, guaranteed their victory in the war that followed…if that’s not an example of preemption, I don’t know what is. I can’t make it any simpler for you than that."

So you have demonstrated, rather clearly, how the two are not analagous. So the question remains, why do you continue to bring these very different points of history up? What are you trying to demonstrate?

"Your besmirching of those in uniform who defend your country is reminiscent of Axis Sally, Tokyo Rose and Lord Haw-Haw all rolled into one and for which you should be ashamed. While your ignorance is understandable, your animus is not"

How is stating uncontroversial, undisputed facts "besmirching" anyone? We have killed over a million innocent civilians in the Middle East over the last decade plus. A significant percentage of them have been children, easily over the hundred-thousand mark. Because you actively choose to pretend that doesn't happen doesn't mean that the rest of us do, or should. Continuing to trot out the propagandistic, farcical notion that Americans are by and large worshipped as Glorious Noble Liberators in every time our soldiers land in the middle east is as dishonest and false in retrospect as it was when it was made as a prediction by the Bush administration.

"You have no clue what the U.S. military does on a daily basis in over one hundred countries around the world, but if you did, I’m sure you would not be impressed."

Correct - I would not. They have no business occupying over a hundred countries around the world. America is supposed to be a Republic, not a far-flung empire dominating the globe.

"Sleep well tonight my friend…for those who stand guard in your stead will protect even the ungrateful and the unworthy."

Not the ones who have died because they were sent to do other than guard America. There are a hundred thousand soldiers in Iraq right now who are not guarding America as they should be. Four thousand of them are dead, lost forever, because the American people were sold bullshit propaganda and selective half-truths, because they were painted a false, rosy picture of Americans being greeted as Liberators by humvee-loving natives. These soldiers are being shot and killed and blown apart. You defend the policies that lead to their deaths. I condemn them. You want them liberating Iraqis. I want them guarding Americans. You want them to conquer. I want them to defend.

Equating a condemnation of a policy with a condemnation of the troops is, plainly and obviously, dishonest in the extreme and a rather tired tactic at this point. The same goes for equating the support of a war with support of the troops. I believe the lives of American soldiers are too valuable to waste nation-building. You do not. I believe the role of the American soldier is to defend Americans. You do not. If any one of us appreciates the worth of American soldiers, it is certainly not the one who cheers on policies that lead to their deaths by the thousands, who believes they should remain in harms way, in a foreign land on the other side of the world. It is the one who wants them home, safe, guarding America.

Ammo Guy| 1.26.09 @ 1:49PM

Just because you are not sharp enough to detect subtle linkages between disparate events does not mean those don't exist or that we don't study such. When we see a potentially dire situation developing somewhere in the world, we ask ourselves whether we should be concerned and, if so, what should be done about it - can we prevent it or should we preempt it? If we need to take action, we look at similar attempts throughout history to see how those preventive or preemptive actions turned out and we try to learn from the mistakes of others. I'd advise you to take the same approach as you struggle thru life.

Meanwhile, you can stand there in front of your computer all day long with your fingers in your ears, shouting "military mass murderers"...but it does not make it so. "We have killed over a million innocent civilians in the Middle East over the last decade plus. A significant percentage of them have been children, easily over the hundred-thousand mark." Well then, if our military is this monstrous, then why should you "believe the lives of American soldiers are too valuable to waste"? Sounds to me like you would think they are getting what they deserve.

"They have no business occupying over a hundred countries around the world." We don't "occupy" these countries, you ignoramus, we train their military not to abuse their own citizens, we help them build road and bridges, we feed their starving, we research cures for their ailments, we treat their afflicted...we are the good guys and I've seen it up close many times in many places while you were gazing at your navel.

OTOH, it is so refreshing to encounter a mind so unclouded by the knowledge of military science and the operational arts. Your clarity of thinking and grasp of the obvious are breathtaking. I may have to rethink my approach to life after my exposure to your profundity. The difference between you and me is that I value experience and you scorn it. You would not last 5 minutes in front of a murder board comprised of even the most junior officers and NCOs and I shudder to think of your reception at an after action review. Your posts are devoid of any reference to your own experiences and merely refer to articles you’ve seen. You remind me of a teenager who read the manual and passed the written exam and now thinks he's ready to take Dad's car out for a spin. You don't know any of the soldiers you condemn and you don't know their stories. Your conceit is reminiscent of those braggarts in past who did not take their opponent seriously and rarely survived to rue their disdain. If this had been any other website, I would’ve written you off as hopeless long ago, but you don’t seem to realize that TAS is unlike the Daily Kos or Democratic Underground where your bon mots might go unchallenged. Serious readers of this publication and its online counterpart are persons of accomplishment who happened upon RET’s publication back in the days before talk radio and the Internet when conservative thought was largely confined to WFB and his National Review. We have endured the catcalls and brickbats of poseurs infinitely more adroit than you. Move on please, your "arguments" will not persuade or impress anyone here.

S.L. Toddard| 1.26.09 @ 2:52PM

"Just because you are not sharp enough to detect subtle linkages between disparate events does not mean those don't exist or that we don't study such. When we see a potentially dire situation developing somewhere in the world, we ask ourselves whether we should be concerned and, if so, what should be done about it - can we prevent it or should we preempt it? If we need to take action, we look at similar attempts throughout history to see how those preventive or preemptive actions turned out and we try to learn from the mistakes of others."

And? What is the point of your demonstration? To demonstrate that their are "subtle linkages"? What have you “learned”? That in hindsight, there are times when preventive war would have worked out for the better? Is that, do you think, some sort of revelation? After the horrors of the world wars we looked back on our mistakes and what we’d learned was that the horror of war is so profound that it should be used only as a *last* resort, as an act of defense or to preempt an imminent attack, and as such we *outlawed* preventive war, as it could lead to catastrophic blunders resulting in the deaths of thousands, hundreds of thousands or millions needlessly, as it has in Iraq (hundreds of thousands), which you supported. Perhaps you haven't "studied" enough. Will you learn from that mistake? I doubt it.

"Meanwhile, you can stand there in front of your computer all day long with your fingers in your ears, shouting "military mass murderers"

Strawman. Misuse of quotation marks.

"We have killed over a million innocent civilians in the Middle East over the last decade plus. A significant percentage of them have been children, easily over the hundred-thousand mark."

I'm sorry, what about that claim do you dispute?

"Well then, if our military is this monstrous, then why should you "believe the lives of American soldiers are too valuable to waste"? Sounds to me like you would think they are getting what they deserve."

That's because you have an unsubtle mind and see the world in black and white, as though history was no more complex than professional wrestling or Star Wars. Soldiers do not make policy, they make war. It is not incumbent upon them to determine what wars to fight, only to fight when called upon. It is those who called upon them to make war against a poor, relatively defenseless nation that posed no threat - imminent or otherwise - who are monstrous. It is the policy that is monstrous. The military is a tool of defense. When a tool is misused, one does not blame the tool. Is this something that you really needed explained?

"we are the good guys"

You mean we're like Luke Skywalker, and NOT like Darth Vader, right? Does that mean everything we do is, by definition, good? Is America incapable of doing evil? You're what, four years old?

"You don't know any of the soldiers you condemn and you don't know their stories."

Hmm. I don't recall condemning any soldiers. Could you quote me on that, or is this another strawman, poking its confused head out of a sea of irrelevant, substance-free ad hominem?

"Serious readers of this publication and its online counterpart are persons of accomplishment who happened upon RET’s publication back in the days before talk radio and the Internet when conservative thought was..."

Conservative thought? Tell me what in what way you are a "conservative". In the Burkean sense? Do you fit into Kirk's model of conservatism? Or is it the Kristol model, where "conservative" means "swaggering tough-guy war cheerleader"? You are aware, I hope, that being "conservative" and a "hawk" are not the same thing, right?

"Move on please, your "arguments" will not persuade or impress anyone here."

Oh, I'm not trying to persuade or impress anyone on this website. I just thought it fitting that the American Spectator should have at least one genuinely conservative voice, even if it is only in the comments section.

Ammo Guy| 1.26.09 @ 4:54PM

"I don't recall condemning any soldiers" - oh please, according to you, who is supposedly killing those million+ civilians? If you think it is our military, then there is your condemnation because no military operation begins with that premise, whether you wish to believe it or not.

"The horror of war is so profound that it should be used only as a *last* resort, as an act of defense or to preempt an imminent attack." I am so glad to finally find someone who can recognize "an imminent attack" - do you realize how many times the Russians jerked us around during the Cold War by conducting exercises along the border that resembled the real thing? Between those feints and the Spetsnaz roaming the autobahns, we could never be sure what was up because their war plans called for quick incursions into our rear areas before we could evacuate our families or bring our tactical nukes into play - now, 20 years later, I find out that all I had to was call you.

So, we are back to where we started - you read a couple of books and now you're an expert on all things conservative and military. Come back when you've actually attempted something and succeeded...or more importantly, failed. You are the critic that TR derided when he said credit belongs to the man in the arena. Have you ever spent a thoughtful evening with someone of RET's ilk who knew Reagan and Buckley intimately for many years? Have you ever had lunch with a French colonel discussing their concept of deterrence - the "force de frappe?" Have you ever driven around the countryside with a Hungarian general discussing the Warsaw Pact and their relationship with the Russians during the Cold War? Have you ever been on a staff ride to a great battlefield such as Verdun or Bastogne or the Meuse-Argonne or Gettysburg or the beaches at Normandy? Have you ever stood at the exact spot where Alvin York earned his MOH? How often do you visit our national military cemeteries to honor those who gave the last full measure of devotion? Did you visit East Berlin under the communists or view their guards along the Iron Curtain while they stared back at you? Have you ever examined military satellite photos and wondered what they were up to? Have you ever wandered thru a bombed out village or viewed remnants of a mass grave? Have you ever visited a concentration camp where millions were murdered because neighbors like you looked the other way? Do you personally know or correspond with any of the great conservative icons you profess to admire? My conservatism is not based upon idle reading, but my experiences and education in the school of reality - you should try it sometime...it might open your eyes, but then you'd have to put on some work clothes, leave your room and perhaps be a bit discomfited.

Nick| 1.26.09 @ 10:59PM

We're all still waiting for the source on that "We have killed over a million innocent civilians in the Middle East over the last decade plus." quote.

Was it Huffpo or koskids?

S.L. Toddard| 1.27.09 @ 8:28AM

"We're all still waiting for the source on that "We have killed over a million innocent civilians in the Middle East over the last decade plus." quote."

Did you ask for a source? If so I missed it. I'm speaking of not just those who've been killed in our attacks but also those who died from the effects of our sanctions etc.

S.L. Toddard| 1.27.09 @ 9:35AM

"'We have killed over a million innocent civilians in the Middle East over the last decade plus. A significant percentage of them have been children, easily over the hundred-thousand mark.' I'm sorry, what about that claim do you dispute?" I dispute all of it - what is your reputable source for such inflated "claims?"
Here are a few from our sanctions of Iraq:
* "probably ... 170,000 children" (Project on Defense Alternatives, [http://www.comw.org/pda/0310rm8.html#N_93_ "The Wages of War"] , 20. October 2003)
* 350,000 excess deaths among children "even using conservative estimates" (Slate Explainer, [http://www.casi.org.uk/discuss/2001/msg00902.html "Are 1 Million Children Dying in Iraq?"] , 9. October 2001)
* United Nations: 1,000,000 Iraqis (CNN, [http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/meast/9908/06/iraq.sanctions/ "Iraq condemns embargo on 9th anniversary of sanctions"] , 6. August 1999)
* Iraqi Baathist Al-Thawra newspaper: 1.5 million ( [http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/meast/9908/06/iraq.sanctions/ CNN] , 6. August 1999)
* Ramsey Clark: 1.5 million (includes sanctions, bombs and other weapons, depleted uranium poisoning) (The Wisdom Fund, [http://www.twf.org/News/Y1997/Ramsey.html "Former US Attorney General Charges US, British and UN Leaders,"] 20. November 1996)
* Iraqi Cultural Minister Hammadi: 1.7 million (includes sanctions, bombs and other weapons, depleted uranium poisoning) ( [http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/sanction/iraq1/2001/0510ina.htm "Iraq criticizes US, UK at Baghdad Conference..."] 10. May 2001)
* Journalist Matt Welch, Reason Magazine, 2002: "It seems awfully hard not to conclude that the embargo on Iraq has ... contributed to more than 100,000 deaths since 1990." [http://www.reason.com/news/show/28346.html]
And from the most recent Iraq War:
ORB estimates over a million deaths: http://www.opinion.co.uk/Newsroom_details.aspx?NewsId=88
Lancet/Johns Hopkins study estimated near 700K as of 2006: http://web.mit.edu/CIS/pdf/Human_Cost_of_War.pdf
WHO survey estimates 400,000+ excessive deaths post-invasion, with 151K resulting directly from violence: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/09/AR2008010902793.html
Due to the difficult nature of determining accurate casualty counts the total estimated civilian casualties varies widely, but add any combination of the sanction-related and Iraq War-related deaths and the numbers are staggering and horrifying. Even taking the absolute lowest, most unrealistically optimistic evidence demonstrates, rather clearly, why your charming memory of dazzling the natives with your humvee is absolutely irrelevant.
“oh please, according to you, who is supposedly killing those million+ civilians? If you think it is our military, then there is your condemnation because no military operation begins with that premise, whether you wish to believe it or not.”
Ahem. “Soldiers do not make policy, they make war. It is not incumbent upon them to determine what wars to fight, only to fight when called upon. It is those who called upon them to make war against a poor, relatively defenseless nation that posed no threat - imminent or otherwise - who are monstrous. It is the policy that is monstrous. The military is a tool of defense. When a tool is misused, one does not blame the tool. Is this something that you really needed explained?”
"The horror of war is so profound that it should be used only as a *last* resort, as an act of defense or to preempt an imminent attack." I am so glad to finally find someone who can recognize "an imminent attack" - do you realize how many times the Russians jerked us around during the Cold War by conducting exercises along the border that resembled the real thing?”
And how many of those feints led to the United States launching a preventive war against the Soviet Union? What about the Rhineland in 36? Did these men learn nothing?!!
Thank GOD you weren’t determining policy, or we might literally have been wiped off the face of the earth. Your brutish, shortsighted, trigger-happy policy could have led to *nuclear war*. Can you really not see that you are arguing – well, in fact – against your own discredited ideas? Again, we should ALL thank God that men wiser than you were at the helm during that time.
“So, we are back to where we started”
Indeed. You continue to flail about offering nothing more than snide ad-hominem attacks and strawmen. You continue to fail to justify preventive war, you continue to fail to demonstrate that it is not a war crime, and you continue to fail (most bafflingly, after the Iraq debacle) to demonstrate any understanding of why it we made it such. You continue to fail to demonstrate how, in any way, you are a “conservative”. You continue to fail to recognize that your anecdotal evidence is not, in any way, relevant. Once again the majority of your response is dedicated to substance-free irrelevancies and ad-hominem (“You didn’t personally know William F Buckly OR Reagan, therefore you are not qualified to opine on foreign policy”??? You cannot see how that is ridiculous?). Go back and read your last couple posts. Do those read, to you, like the reasoning of a well educated and informed adult? It’s rather sad to have had to watch you fall apart like this. You were doing fairly well for a while, as well as someone can who’s attempting to defend indefensible, logically inconsistent ideas. The futility of that endeavor, I think, got the better of you, as it must. When one is arguing against logic and fact, sooner or later one hits a wall and must either resort to logical fallacies – to ad-hominem and strawmen in your case - or simply admit defeat. When one cannot refute an argument, try to discredit the arguer – that is the resort of a man who has run out of ideas, whose logic has failed him and who has no other, more honorable recourse. To do so is logically fallacious, and beneath a thinking man.
Try harder.

S.L. Toddard| 1.27.09 @ 9:38AM

Here's a more easily readable version of my previous post:

Here are a few from our sanctions of Iraq:

* "probably ... 170,000 children" (Project on Defense Alternatives, [http://www.comw.org/pda/0310rm8.html#N_93_ "The Wages of War"] , 20. October 2003)

* 350,000 excess deaths among children "even using conservative estimates" (Slate Explainer, [http://www.casi.org.uk/discuss/2001/msg00902.html "Are 1 Million Children Dying in Iraq?"] , 9. October 2001)

* United Nations: 1,000,000 Iraqis (CNN, [http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/meast/9908/06/iraq.sanctions/ "Iraq condemns embargo on 9th anniversary of sanctions"] , 6. August 1999)

* Iraqi Baathist Al-Thawra newspaper: 1.5 million ( [http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/meast/9908/06/iraq.sanctions/ CNN] , 6. August 1999)

* Ramsey Clark: 1.5 million (includes sanctions, bombs and other weapons, depleted uranium poisoning) (The Wisdom Fund, [http://www.twf.org/News/Y1997/Ramsey.html "Former US Attorney General Charges US, British and UN Leaders,"] 20. November 1996)

* Iraqi Cultural Minister Hammadi: 1.7 million (includes sanctions, bombs and other weapons, depleted uranium poisoning) ( [http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/sanction/iraq1/2001/0510ina.htm "Iraq criticizes US, UK at Baghdad Conference..."] 10. May 2001)

* Journalist Matt Welch, Reason Magazine, 2002: "It seems awfully hard not to conclude that the embargo on Iraq has ... contributed to more than 100,000 deaths since 1990." [http://www.reason.com/news/show/28346.html]

And from the most recent Iraq War:

ORB estimates over a million deaths: http://www.opinion.co.uk/Newsroom_details.aspx?NewsId=88

Lancet/Johns Hopkins study estimated near 700K as of 2006: http://web.mit.edu/CIS/pdf/Human_Cost_of_War.pdf

WHO survey estimates 400,000+ excessive deaths post-invasion, with 151K resulting directly from violence: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/09/AR2008010902793.html

Due to the difficult nature of determining accurate casualty counts the total estimated civilian casualties varies widely, but add any combination of the sanction-related and Iraq War-related deaths and the numbers are staggering and horrifying. Even taking the absolute lowest, most unrealistically optimistic evidence demonstrates, rather clearly, why your charming memory of dazzling the natives with your humvee is absolutely irrelevant.

“oh please, according to you, who is supposedly killing those million+ civilians? If you think it is our military, then there is your condemnation because no military operation begins with that premise, whether you wish to believe it or not.”

Ahem. “Soldiers do not make policy, they make war. It is not incumbent upon them to determine what wars to fight, only to fight when called upon. It is those who called upon them to make war against a poor, relatively defenseless nation that posed no threat - imminent or otherwise - who are monstrous. It is the policy that is monstrous. The military is a tool of defense. When a tool is misused, one does not blame the tool. Is this something that you really needed explained?”

And how many of those feints led to the United States launching a preventive war against the Soviet Union? What about the Rhineland in 36? Did these men learn nothing?!!

Thank GOD you weren’t determining policy, or we might literally have been wiped off the face of the earth. Your brutish, shortsighted, trigger-happy policy could have led to *nuclear war*. Can you really not see that you are arguing – well, in fact – against your own discredited ideas? Again, we should ALL thank God that men wiser than you were at the helm during that time.

“So, we are back to where we started”

Indeed. You continue to flail about offering nothing more than snide ad-hominem attacks and strawmen. You continue to fail to justify preventive war, you continue to fail to demonstrate that it is not a war crime, and you continue to fail (most bafflingly, after the Iraq debacle) to demonstrate any understanding of why it we made it such. You continue to fail to demonstrate how, in any way, you are a “conservative”. You continue to fail to recognize that your anecdotal evidence is not, in any way, relevant. Once again the majority of your response is dedicated to substance-free irrelevancies and ad-hominem (“You didn’t personally know William F Buckly OR Reagan, therefore you are not qualified to opine on foreign policy”??? You cannot see how that is ridiculous?). Go back and read your last couple posts. Do those read, to you, like the reasoning of a well educated and informed adult? It’s rather sad to have had to watch you fall apart like this. You were doing fairly well for a while, as well as someone can who’s attempting to defend indefensible, logically inconsistent ideas. The futility of that endeavor, I think, got the better of you, as it must. When one is arguing against logic and fact, sooner or later one hits a wall and must either resort to logical fallacies – to ad-hominem and strawmen in your case - or simply admit defeat. When one cannot refute an argument, try to discredit the arguer – that is the resort of a man who has run out of ideas, whose logic has failed him and who has no other, more honorable recourse. To do so is logically fallacious, and beneath a thinking man.

Try harder.

Nick| 1.27.09 @ 1:36PM

I believe Ammo Guy asked for a REPUTABLE source. Not a bunch of lefties that spew anti-American propaganda. (Except your "Reason" mag. quote, although Mr. Welch is clearly giving his opinion.) CNN, Slate, the UN are really objective, aren't they?

You quoted Ramsey Clark and a Baathist newspaper? Do you even know who Clark is\was?
Why didn't you quote Saddam Hussien while you were at it? Why stop at the Iraqi Cultural Minister?

Mr. Toddard, are you Bagdad Bob?

This is like quoting Goebbels and Himmler to prove Germany was justified invading Poland.

You have proved you are not intellectually honest, just an anti-war propagandist.

Ammo Guy| 1.27.09 @ 1:44PM

Though Nick beat me to it, somehow I always knew it would come back to the sanctions...and the numbers you "reference" were supplied by whom? Saddam, his minions and his apologists. You actually have the temerity to come to this website and throw out "references" from someone as reprehensible, unreliable and anti-American as Ramsey Clark, as well as a Baathist newspaper and Saddam's "Cultural Minister"? I'm sure if you had listened to Radio Tirana during the Cold War, you would have thought that Albania under Hoxha was winning the whole thing hands down.

Saddam could've easily fed his people during the "sanctions," but he was too busy diverting funds to the feeding and resupplying his army, as well as paying off the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. Ever hear of the "oil for food" scandal? So much money was being skimmed off by Saddam's henchman and corrupt UN officials that nothing was left to "feed the children." However many deaths occurred during Saddam's heinous regime, we (the U.S., the "good guys" you so readily dismiss as a fiction) are not responsible for a single loss of life. It tells me a lot about you that you are so eager to accept the word of a tyrant in order to slander this great country and its military. Call me a four year old if you will, but we do not plan evil for this world, even if some rogue elements occasionally carry out an isolated horrific action - and for that, they are caught and punished accordingly. Be that as it may, there is no military in the history of the world that has held itself to a higher standard than ours. I've been thru so many "law of war" classes that I'm tempted to demand a Juris Doctor degree one of these days.

I thought depleted uranium was dense until I ran into you. Y’know, I spent six years as an instructor at a military training facility and I was probably the most patient member of the staff when it came to the students. However, I gotta tell you, with your attitude and inability to grasp the simplest concepts, we would’ve sent you packing within the first week.

Once again you come to the fray without a single accomplishment that can attest to your competence. A couple of robust rock drills would crush your conceit. We plan, we train, we exercise...and we do it over and over again...what do you do? I’ve been to many briefings over the years presented by young pups full of theory and short on substance. Inevitably, during the course of their presentation, they were chewed up by the greybeards in the audience who had already seen and heard it all. If the research for the briefing was based upon Wikipedia, as yours is, the author would've been laughed out of town. If you can’t back up your statements with at least one personal example of the execution thereof, and the subsequent lessons learned, you’re just wasting your time…which is what this thread has now become. Come back when you’ve done something worthy of discussion.

Nick| 1.27.09 @ 2:08PM

Here is my impression of an anti-war kook blogging on the internets.

KOOK: "Bush lied us into war!!! And millions of civilians died as a result!"

KOOK to himself: (I know I've heard "600,000" dead for years, but recently I've heard it was "millions")

BLOGGER: "give me a source for the millions of dead civilians."

KOOK to himself: (oh crap!! I was afraid someone would ask that. Who did I hear that from? Well it should be easy enough to find out.)

KOOK googles.

KOOK to himself: (CRAP!! These are all a bunch of lefty crazies. I was sure these stats were authentic. I'll search some more.)

JEOPARDY MUSIC PLAYS
A day goes by

KOOK to himself: (I can't believe these stats come from Saddam and his defenders. Well maybe they won't notice, or maybe they won't bother to read. As an ideologue and propagandist I can't concede.)

KOOK posts "sources" rather than admit exaggerated death numbers were bogus.

Nick| 1.27.09 @ 2:17PM

Didn't mean to step on your toes, sorry. But I couldn't help myself.

That depleted uranium line is priceless. Mind if I use it sometime?

S.L. Toddard| 1.27.09 @ 2:44PM

"I believe Ammo Guy asked for a REPUTABLE source. Not a bunch of lefties that spew anti-American propaganda."

I'm not sure if that's a joke. I posted all the estimates I found, to demonstrate the range and included numbers that were below the number i cited for that specific purpose. I referenced the World Health Organization, the U.N., the Johns Hopkins study, the Lancet study and the ORB study. These are "leftist crazies"? You are joking, right?

S.L. Toddard| 1.27.09 @ 2:51PM

" Though Nick beat me to it, somehow I always knew it would come back to the sanctions...and the numbers you "reference" were supplied by whom? Saddam, his minions and his apologists. You actually have the temerity to come to this website and throw out "references" from someone as reprehensible, unreliable and anti-American as Ramsey Clark, as well as a Baathist newspaper and Saddam's "Cultural Minister"? I'm sure if you had listened to Radio Tirana during the Cold War, you would have thought that Albania under Hoxha was winning the whole thing hands down.

I'm looking for a refutation in here... maybe a conflicting study... no... how about any contradictory evidence... any sources referenced... no...

No. More strawmen, and more ad-hominem. You know that stringing strawmen and ad-hominem attacks together and winding it up with a tough-guy speech about all you've done in your "service" doesn't add up to an argument, right? I understand that you have "served", and that you can formulate ad-hominem attacks, construct strawmen and then knock them down. But if that's all you can do, why bother?

S.L. Toddard| 1.27.09 @ 2:58PM

"An ad hominem argument, also known as argumentum ad hominem (Latin: "argument to the man", "argument against the man") consists of replying to an argument or factual claim by attacking or appealing to a characteristic or belief of the source making the argument or claim, rather than by addressing the substance of the argument or producing evidence against the claim. The process of proving or disproving the claim is thereby subverted, and the argumentum ad hominem works to change the subject."

From Wikipedia, the source of all sources!

Nick| 1.27.09 @ 3:31PM

Do you consider them centrist or objective?

The UN- Left wing organization pushed by FDR, Eleanor, and Stalin.
WHO- Department of left wing UN

Read the Lancet/Johns Hopkins study over 2 1/2 years ago when John McLaughlin started citing the "600,000 dead Iraqi civilians" garbage every week on his show. Any "study" that cites "estimates" is not scientific.

Never heard of the ORB study. Opinion Research Business? They're really a well known, objective source of information.

Why aren't you defending quoting Saddam's minions and defenders? Too embarrassing, huh?

Why don't you just admit that you heard the "millions" crap during the election, and when asked to cite a source, you googled it and then posted everything you found to support your opinion?

S.L. Toddard| 1.27.09 @ 3:38PM

" The UN- Left wing organization pushed by FDR, Eleanor, and Stalin.
WHO- Department of left wing UN

Never heard of the ORB study. Opinion Research Business? They're really a well known, objective source of information."

Hahahaha. I get it - you had me for a minute, until the part about studies with "estimates" not being scientific. You cagey so-and-so!

Boy is my face red.

S.L. Toddard| 1.27.09 @ 3:45PM

Hey let me try one, Nick

"The United States army says there were XXXXX civilian casualties resulting from the Iraq War"

The United States Army - military wing of the United States, a member of the Left-Wing United Nations. Do you have any reputable sources or just from left-wing crazies, like the United States Army?

Hahaha man that is rich. You got me, buddy! Really had me going there for a minute.

Nick| 1.27.09 @ 3:57PM

All "estimates" are subjective and inherently biased. That is why estimates are almost always wrong. Whether it's CBO predictions, AGW, WHO projections, etc., they're constantly wrong.

Show me actual numbers. If all these people died it should have been easy to count them. Or are the dead hiding on us?

Keep believing everything you're spoon fed from the left. You are what was called in the days of the cold war an Useful Idiot.

Ammo Guy| 1.27.09 @ 10:13PM

I cite no study because there are none of sufficient rigor to post in association with my name. Unlike you, S.L. Toddard, I will not base my opinions on the effluvia that floats around the Internet, to include the Lancet "studies" which have been widely criticized by a number of other experts, but I guess you'll just cherry-pick the highest numbers you can find because it suits your purpose; if you are determined to always believe the worst about your country, that is your right and better men than you have died to protect that right. To cite Baathist sources and Saddam's spokesmen shows how shoddy your "research" is and how gullible you are. Finally, I'm so tickled that you continue to use "ad hominem" as your "get out of jail free" card whenever I question your CV - I can just hear you sputtering to some General who questioned your conclusion by inquiring into your background, "but sir, that is an ad hominem attack." I learned long ago not to take the opinions of poseurs at face value without knowing their history and motivation. In your case, I guess there is nothing to learn.

Once again, your sources are corrupt (certainly you can do better than cut and paste from Wikipedia - wouldn't it be great if you did some research on your own, such as talk to a few soldiers who have actually served in Iraq?), your conservatism is suspect (a twisted form of Buchananism at best...or worst), and your own accomplishments are nil. Your "arguments" are laughable, your "logic" is childish, and your bona fides are nonexistent. You want perfect analogies and clear-cut connections...well, buddy boy, the world is not like that and won't wait for your perfect storm to form so you can make up your mind. "A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week" - solid advice from a man of accomplishment, albeit a bit rough around the edges for someone as delicate as you.

You are not man of accomplishment and likely will never be. You continue to dismiss experience as merely an anecdote or a singular event unworthy of discussion or examination. The Russian soldiers I dined with in the Tuzla mess hall would have chuckled as they snapped your neck - "useful idiots", indeed. Good luck in the real world, you're gonna need it. Try harder? That's my daily goal...OTOH, you should try at all.

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