The American Spectator

Roy| 1.16.09 @ 5:23PM

Yes, because then the Republican party will be wiped out and stop interfering with the only thing Sullivan cares about - the shutting up by the government of anyone who disapproves of his sexual behavior.

Bob| 1.16.09 @ 5:47PM

Complaining about Obama's spending sounds hollow and ineffective from Republicans who doubled the debt on their watch over the past 8 years. It is the ultimate hypocrisy.

What they should do is admit to their mistakes and berate the Bush administration for doing so. Then, instead of complaining about Obama, they need to start coming up with alternative plans. Complainers are never winners. Admit that supply side theories have not worked and that mindset caused much of the current problems.

But no, Republicans want further tax cuts and more tax inequality. Put forth a platform of fairer and flatter taxes. Take government out of the incentive business using tax breaks. Simplify government. Address entitlement reform which accounts for 53% of the total budget. Move towards balanced budgets as a way to hold down spending. Make intelligence and knowledge and education important with Republicans. There are lots of good platforms but Republicans lack the cajones to become real conservatives with brains. Currently, they are ideologues who cater to white Southern social conservatives.

Alan Brooks| 1.16.09 @ 11:52PM

why did Republicans run up such a debt, Bob? to help whom? to buy whose loyalty? (or ungrateful disloyalty)
to buy whose votes?

[no reply]

Dandapani| 1.17.09 @ 6:22AM

If it weren't for Double Standards, the Democrats wouldn't have any standards at all.

Bob| 1.17.09 @ 9:22AM

Alan, the Republicans ran up the debt to get votes. Who doesn't want lower taxes but still get more services. All supply side economics has done is to raise the debt levels significantly by giving services the government cannot afford.

This shows a total lack of fiscal responsibility and caring for our children who will have to pay this back.

The Republicans can get away with this because they cater to the social conservatives who believe rather than reason.

Alan Brooks| 1.17.09 @ 11:10AM

didn't 1994 congress help balance the budget late '90s?
ast time i mentioned that you said in effect "don't be rational when i'm having anger on anger give and take with commenters at amspec"
didn't war effort confuse and derail Bush admin fiscal plans? they're human not magicians.

Alan Brooks| 1.17.09 @ 11:20AM

last time i mentioned IT and post-'95 budget (not to mention replenishing post-'93 inventories and also the post Cold War peace dividend) it was you-- not Jeremiah-- who wrote 'let me talk to bloggers my anger on anger way'
so as to be quote less "rational" unquote.
it is a fact you wrote that. just a few weeks ago.

Alan Brooks| 1.17.09 @ 11:23AM

being less rational is belief (faith) based not reason (able).
you can go to archives to look up your admonishment.

Bob| 1.17.09 @ 11:53AM

Alan, there are several reasons for the budget balancing of the 90's. First, we didn't have large, supply side tax cuts. Secondly, it was one of the best times for economic growth. Third, we had the dot com bubble. Here's a chart of federal spending:

http://www.heritage.org/Research/features/budgetchartbook/fed-rev-spend-2008-boc-S1-Federal-Spending-Has-Increased.html

You'll see that it is a myth that Republicans held down spending in the mid to late 90's. You are an example of why Republicans are in trouble. You don't use any reason or analysis for your statements. You believe what you hear from the uneducated dolts like Rush and Hannity.

Next time, Alan, do your homework. With Google, you can get your answers in a matter of seconds.

When you don't use reason to check your beliefs you become irrelevant. I'm not saying that beliefs are unimportant, only that there is a balance and we should all be checking our assumptions and not acting like lemmings.

ruth| 1.17.09 @ 1:56PM

Shhhhhh, don't you people know that we are in a most terrible national crisis? We must not think, we must not examine too closely what the liberals are trying to ram through. Don't be unpatriotic! Isn't it Rahm Emanuel who stated , "We must never waste a good crisis." Exactly.

ruth| 1.17.09 @ 2:14PM

Bob, do you know what the word collaborator means? Think about it.

Bob| 1.17.09 @ 2:35PM

Ruthie, are you familiar with the words "toady" and "lemming"? That would be verbiage appropriate to you and your fellow posters here. The first casualty of partisanship is truth. When Republicans finally see the truth, they will have a chance to succeed.

Again, there is significant corruption on both sides of the aisle. The truth shall set you free....

Alan Brooks| 1.17.09 @ 2:50PM

bob,
but you did write 'dont be rational' while you were anger-on- anger w/ guys here. oh, well.

Bob| 1.17.09 @ 2:56PM

Alan, I've always talked about using reason in the public square. Yes, I am angry at Republicans and especially social conservatives for their lack of reason and utilizing mythology rather than facts. Being anti-intellectual is not a plus for Republicans, it is a huge negative. Putting down Ivy League universities is just an excuse for choosing candidates who are not smart.

Alan Brooks| 1.17.09 @ 3:32PM

Bob,
were right wing here at AS. what do you expect?
you go to NAMBLA you get a pedophile viewpoint; American National Socialist gives a neo-nazi viewpoint.
Homeless Gay Whale Alliance gives their viewpoint.

ruth| 1.17.09 @ 3:43PM

Bobi, you are the lemming because you are weak and stand for nothing. People like you jump ship immediately when the waters get rough, like rats on a struggling ship. Rats are always first to jump ship, Bobi.

Bob| 1.17.09 @ 4:22PM

Ruth, if I were a lemming, I'd follow just like you. If I stood for nothing, I couldn't be a lemming. I stand for intelligence and reason. I stand for fiscal conservatism. I stand for keeping the government out of my personal business even if pertains to abortion and gay marriage. I stand for objective analyses. And I stand for giving social conservatives less voice in the Republican party. I know objectivity and being bright bothers you which is why you could support someone like Palin. If this all means I stand for nothing, then so be it.

ruth| 1.17.09 @ 4:36PM

Bobi, you're just another liberal tool, much like the Vichi Government was for the Nazis. A rat is a rat is a rat. You belong with the other tools at Huff/Post, Move-on. org., etc. You will feel more comfortable there, not so angry, (well maybe not the angry part).

Alexander A.K Hoggsbuckel IV| 1.17.09 @ 6:40PM

Why you AS folks waste time pondering Sullivan is beyond me. I thought this was a serious publication.

tony| 1.18.09 @ 1:31AM

Ruth:

Forget arguing with Bob. If you went through this site and checked his numerous posts, you will find Bob telling us what an enlightened, reasonable and intelligent fellow he is, while at the same time berating us right wing boobs. You would think his brilliance would shine through to such an extent that he would not need to remind us of the enormity of his intellect and wisdom, but he feels the need to nonetheless.

So, I would suggest that you acknowledge his brilliance and make his day, but give up any notion of debate with Bob. He's just too darn smart for you and everyone else here.

ruth| 1.18.09 @ 6:20AM

Yes, Tony, I know you are right. You certainly are right, it's the stubborn Scot in me. I will never make his day and I will never reward his boorish behavior.

Bob| 1.18.09 @ 7:58AM

Tony, we all have our strengths and weaknesses. Mine happen to be in mathematical theory, economics, statistical analysis, logic theory, and business development/analysis. I've have advanced degrees in those areas and have spent the last 40 years successfully using those capabilities in Fortune 100 companies. When it comes to other areas, my opinion is not as factually driven.

What bothers me here is that there is such a disdain for analysis, intelligence, and the facts. It doesn't seem that people who post have any understanding of things like economic theory, GDP, polling data analysis, federal spending, etc. For example, the numbers show that Reagan's economic plan did not work because it increased the debt more than any previous President, that supply side Presidents did not grow GDP or the market any more than Democrat Presidents, that Palin on the ticket hurt McCain, etc. These are just facts based on analysis.

If you want to argue on the basis of analysis and facts, go right ahead. I believe one of the weaknesses of Republicans right now is that we don't face fact. There are a number of Republican heroes and myths. If you really believe in fiscal conservatism, then conservatives must take a turn to reality.

I can't make you look objectively at the facts. But I can show you charts and references so that if you have some education in math, you might become more factually grounded.

tony| 1.18.09 @ 12:00PM

Bob:

First, I do not need to be lectured by you on education. I am a practicing attorney, so having graduated from a top northeastern law school, I am quite confident in my ability to think logically and to understand complicated concepts. That's the last I'll say with respect to my qualifications, but I think we can both assume that there are plenty of people on this site of at least equal intellect and education. So give it a rest with the "I'm smarter then everyone else here" attitude. When you have to constantly remind people of your intelligence, the natural conclusion is that you're probably not nearly as smart as you think.

Statistical analysis is fine if your premise is correct. Let's take your analysis of Reagan's economic plan. You state that it "didn't work because it increased the debt more than any previous president." This is a trick that historical revisionists use to mock supply side economic theory and the success of Reagan's plan, which was the product of Arthur Laffer, author of the "Laffer Curve." As a lover of statistics, surely you're familiar with the Laffer Curve.

The point of Reaganomics was not to reduce the debt but spur economic growth. The idea that the economy didn't grow during the '80s is something that even a Keynesian would not put forth. If you're really the statistician you claim to be, why don't you go take a look at the increase in treasury revenues during the '80s. They more than doubled, which results either from a massive short term tax increase or long term growth. The reason for the continued growth in debt is that spending increases outpaced the increases in revenues. Remember, Reagan had to deal with Tip O'Neill and a big spending Congress. He also had the small matter of winning the Cold War.

As for Palin, I believe I've dealt with this before. McCain was a terrible candidate running in a terrible year for republicans. The end came with the collapse of the financial markets in October and McCain's lame response.

Yes, Palin caused a spike after she was named, then the numbers pulled back, but when people go to the voting booth, they vote for the guy at the top. Personally, the only thing that kept me interested was Palin. Many of my conservative friends would tell you the same thing. Of course, to you, we're all non-thinking neanderthals who don't deal in logic and facts. But that kind of nonsense is of no concern.

Bob| 1.18.09 @ 2:19PM

Tony, I would not try to compete with you on the law -- and I don't comment on the law because I don't consider I have any significant expertise on the subject. However, most lawyers don't have a background in theoretical math.

Here's the problem with Reaganomics -- it did not spur economic growth. That is a myth propounded by uneducated ideologues. Here's a graph of GDP which is the prime measure of economic growth:

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

You'll see whether you use actual or normalized data, there was not any more growth under Reagan than any other President. You are trying to make a "legal" argument that is not backed up by fact. Even Laffer, who is laughed at by most economists, has said that his theory was overused and had flaws. And by the way, the Laffer Curve is NOT statistics -- it is economic theory. Statistics is the manipulation of actual data through interpolation. This shows that you really don't understand statistics.

You talked about federal revenues. Here's a chart of federal revenues basic data:

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

If you want to look at this normalized to GDP, you'll see that federal receipts were about average for most of Reagan's term:

http://www.heritage.org/research/features/budgetchartbook/fed-rev-spend-2008-boc-R1-Current-Federal-Tax-Receipts-Near.html

But if you take a look at debt, you'll see huge rises during supply side administrations:

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

If you say you are as good as you are in logic, you cannot conclude that supply side administrations have been good for this country. You are simply repeating a myth not consistent with the data.

The truth, according to the data, is that tax cutting did not force the government to spend less so supply side failed. This is another reason I know that you are not good at logic, you never looked at the actual data and just believed ideologues.

Now the primary reason spending wasn't reduced was not the cold war, or in Bush's case the Iraq war, but because social security and medicare continued to climb faster than GDP. They are now 53% of the total budget. Mathematically, you cannot get significant cuts in spending without cutting these programs. Again, your "logic" of blaming this on Democrats is a myth because neither side wanted to take the risk to address social security and medicare reform.

On the Palin issue, the data shows that after the initial bump, McCain lost polling share more than that bump with two events, Palin's interviews with Gibson and Couric. Furthermore, the data shows that 30% Hillary's supporters moved to McCain when he chose Palin but that was reduced to 6% after those two interviews. Palin also lost moderate Republican support of people like Colin Powell.

I don't consider you a "neanderthal". But one of the things you should have learned in school (I also went to an Ivy League school) is that you should listen to people with different types of expertise to broaden your perspective. Again, I could not do your job and you could not do mine.

There is a difference between quantitative and qualitative data. Within quantitative data, there is a significant difference between interpolation and extrapolation. You should never use qualitative data to come to conclusions on quantitative events. A good use of qualitative data is to explain the behavior of quantitative data. You need to start looking more at the real data and listen less to the ideologues.

ruth| 1.18.09 @ 2:43PM

We'll find out who is right when Palin runs for national office on her own terms. The election of 2008 is a moot point now.

tony| 1.18.09 @ 2:54PM

Bob:

"The truth, according to the data, is that tax cutting did not force the government to spend less so supply side failed. This is another reason I know that you are not good at logic, you never looked at the actual data and just believed ideologues."

Now who has the flawed logic? The purpose of tax cutting is to spur economic growth, not cut spending. Tax policy and spending are two entirely different matters. It is simply not a natural logical progression that one cuts taxes so that one can spend less.

Also, according to your charts, revenues to the treasury increased while at the same time these same revenues, as a percentage of GDP, decreased rather significantly. Am I missing something, or is that a sign of an increase in GDP, which is a main indicator of strong economic growth? Just wondering?

I also did not place the blame on democrats, although I think it's safe to say that in a spending contest, democrats will win every time. But it takes two to tango. I do agree with you on entitlement spending; it will be the ruination of our country if we do not get it under control.

With regard to Palin, while I acknowledge the up and down nature of her impact, you simply refuse to acknowledge anything that does not conform to your narrow view. You ignore the political environment, the major flaws of McCain and his failures during the campaign, instead focusing on what supports your ideological argument. All of this while demeaning those who do not have your self-declared openmindedness as ideologues.

You also make the classic mistake of the self identified openminded person by assuming that just because someone disagrees with you, they have not opened themselves up to alternate sources of information. That is quite an assumption to make and demonstrates weakness on your part. Just knock off the name calling and deal with the substance of the argument.

But what I would really like is an answer to the question I posed, which is how can treasury revenues increase while revenues as a percentage of GDP decrease if Reagan's economic plan, based on supply side economics, was a failure? Please remember that I'm not interested in debt, which is not what we're talking about. Simply economic growth.

Bob| 1.18.09 @ 3:56PM

Good, Tony, we are now getting into factual discussions. Let me answer your question regarding treasury revenues and their relationship with GDP. There will be fluctuations in these numbers based upon one major missing factor -- the value of the dollar and resultant effects on trade imbalances. Therefore, in order to evaluate these numbers effectively, you must average out the impact over a number of years to minimize the short term effects. That's why you don't really look at the spikes, but the overall trend of the data over a period of time.

GDP, the best measure of economic growth, does not seem to be effected over time by who is President. This makes infinite sense if you realize that economic growth is primarily the purview of private enterprise, not government. In my opinion, we give too much credit (and discredit) to administrations for economic growth. They seen to be able to affect it on the margins, but not in the mainstream. If you then look at revenues as a percentage of GDP over time, you'll see that it fluctuates from year to year but during most administrations fluctuates around a fairly stable baseline. So, in reality, there is no major difference in either treasury revenues or normalization against GDP for any President. That's where your argument fails.

An economic theory, if it supposedly works, should have a longer term effect on the data. You should see steady increases for an effective theory and steady decreases for an ineffective one. You don't see that for Reagan, Bush, or for that matter, any other President with the exception of Clinton whose term coincides with the dot com boom.

Thus, I maintain, that no economic theories as applied by real administrations, has had a major effect on economic growth whether it is supply side or Keynesian. It is wrong to look at Reaganomics as successful, but it is just as wrong to look at Keynesian applications as successful. After studying the data, it seems that there are some things that are stimulative and some that are not. Long term stimulus is very difficult to measure.

Tax cuts have hurt us because they've caused more debt than any other governmental act. If you knew that tax cuts would not stimulate the economy over the longer run, would not result in significantly increased receipts, and would not force government to cut spending, then why do them other than for political reasons to be reelected?

That's why I take any simplified theory with some large grains of salt. I would not take any large tax cuts unless we could tie them to spending decreases -- and the only way to do that is to force balanced budgets (something I like). For the same reasons, I also don't believe that a large stimulus will have a large effect on the economy. This is also why the bailouts have not had a huge effect (I'm against most of the bailouts, by the way). Since 70% of the U.S. economy is consumption, if you are going to give tax cuts, you want to give them to people who will need to spend for their daily activities, and not to the wealthy who would use the money to save or invest. So middle class tax cuts make some sense -- but not to grow the economy, but to work on the margins to slow down recessionary forces. Selected stimulus chosen on the basis of job creation also makes some sense on the margins and both liberal and conservative economists will agree on that.

What I object to is your view that supply side theories have worked when the data does not support that view, especially with Reagan. Our greatest economic iceberg in the future is no longer economic growth, but the size of our debt. The one thing we can say for sure is that supply side theories grow the debt significantly. You cannot argue with that given the data for the Reagan and Bush administrations.

ruth| 1.18.09 @ 4:21PM

Tony, you are funny.

sidnee| 12.12.09 @ 11:28AM

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