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Republican Economic Policies

imreallyperplexed

Council Member
Just to be clear, when Democrats blame GWB for driving the American economy into a ditch and leaving a mess for the Obama Administration, they are using GWB as a symbol for GWB AND a Republican Congress AND a set of misguided economic policies (fiscal and regulatory).

In other words, you can't really blame GWB directly. You have to place the blame on failed Republican economic policies. What you see this year among all the major Republican candidates is a rehash and a doubling down on the same failed disastrous policies that were promoted by Republicans during the Bush years. Why go back to the same set of misguided policies that dug the hole.

The economy is beginning to come around. Though Republicans will promise a new dawn, what they will deliver is the same old misery.
 

Lukey

Senator
See, where your theory breaks down is in the assumption that all Republican policy is bad and all Democrat (progressive) policy is good. The problem with that notion is that, if that were true, after three years of Obama's administration (the first two with an unbelievably compliant Congress) we should be rocking and rolling economically speaking by now and yet we are mired in a semi-recessionary state with high structural levels of unemployment, soaring welfare rolls and trillion $ deficits as far as the eye can see. Why take the advice of a misguided ideologue about what we should or shouldn't be doing on the economy?
 

imreallyperplexed

Council Member
Where I think that you are wrong.

We still have a high unemployment rate. However, it is coming down. Calling it a semi-recessionary state is silly.

You and Romney-Ryan can try to paint a supply-side plan for a robust economy all you want. The Romney-Ryan plan is a disaster in the making - full of empty promises. Obama is the heir of the Clinton economic policies and deficits will be brought under control (as they should be). But it will take a while. The Republican policies of the GWB years did an truly amazing job of producing a near depression coupled with runaway deficits. The Romney-Ryan plan returns and double-downs on the Republican policies of the Bush years will risk another depression, soaring deficits, and widespread misery for the middle class (while the very rich prosper).

Finally, the only true ideologues that I know (those who prefer their theories to evidence and facts) are supply-siders. Yet another reason that Romeny, Ryan, Gingrich, and Santorum are wrong for America.

See, where your theory breaks down is in the assumption that all Republican policy is bad and all Democrat (progressive) policy is good. The problem with that notion is that, if that were true, after three years of Obama's administration (the first two with an unbelievably compliant Congress) we should be rocking and rolling economically speaking by now and yet we are mired in a semi-recessionary state with high structural levels of unemployment, soaring welfare rolls and trillion $ deficits as far as the eye can see. Why take the advice of a misguided ideologue about what we should or shouldn't be doing on the economy?
 

fairsheet

Senator
For the record, "semi-recessionary" is a meaningless oxymoron. Either the poster who used this nonsensical term is oblivious, or he's hyperbolizing.
 

PhilFish

Administrator
Staff member
I have to ask.... what do you mean by risk..as in ... "risk another depression, soaring deficits, and widespread misery for the middle class " Setting depression aside...where you been?
 

MaryAnne

Governor
See, where your theory breaks down is in the assumption that all Republican policy is bad and all Democrat (progressive) policy is good. The problem with that notion is that, if that were true, after three years of Obama's administration (the first two with an unbelievably compliant Congress) we should be rocking and rolling economically speaking by now and yet we are mired in a semi-recessionary state with high structural levels of unemployment, soaring welfare rolls and trillion $ deficits as far as the eye can see. Why take the advice of a misguided ideologue about what we should or shouldn't be doing on the economy?
3.2 Million jobs,Lukey!:eek:)
 

Lukey

Senator
Where I think that you are wrong.

We still have a high unemployment rate. However, it is coming down. Calling it a semi-recessionary state is silly.

You and Romney-Ryan can try to paint a supply-side plan for a robust economy all you want. The Romney-Ryan plan is a disaster in the making - full of empty promises. Obama is the heir of the Clinton economic policies and deficits will be brought under control (as they should be). But it will take a while. The Republican policies of the GWB years did an truly amazing job of producing a near depression coupled with runaway deficits. The Romney-Ryan plan returns and double-downs on the Republican policies of the Bush years will risk another depression, soaring deficits, and widespread misery for the middle class (while the very rich prosper).

Finally, the only true ideologues that I know (those who prefer their theories to evidence and facts) are supply-siders. Yet another reason that Romeny, Ryan, Gingrich, and Santorum are wrong for America.
Well your analysis is a bit off. Bush was no supply sider. Taxes = Spending (current + deferred). From this simple formula it is easy to see Bush was a Kloset Keynesian. On the other hand, Bill (the era of big government is over) Clinton WAS a supply sider (and the economy responded, as one would expect, extremely well). The only President whose policies Obama is "returning to" is George W. Bush's.
 

imreallyperplexed

Council Member
Romney-Ryan would drive up unemployment in the short-term, lead to runaway deficits over the long term, and create much greater economic inequality. The last three years have been a matter of slowly recovering from the disasters created by Republican policies of the Bush years. It is as simple as that. The economy was quick to crumble (during Bush's watch) and difficult to turn around. Now that it is turning around, why return to the policies that created the mess in the first place?

The Republican narrative on the Obama years has been an exercise is covering up the stupidity of Republican policies. In other words, Romney-Ryan is empty promises. There plans are not plans for recovery or robust growth, They are prescriptions for renewed decline (ala the Bush/Republican years.)

Is it clear now?

I have to ask.... what do you mean by risk..as in ... "risk another depression, soaring deficits, and widespread misery for the middle class " Setting depression aside...where you been?
 

Lukey

Senator
For the record, "semi-recessionary" is a meaningless oxymoron. Either the poster who used this nonsensical term is oblivious, or he's hyperbolizing.
What would you call an economy that has yet to fully recover back to trend levels in employment, GDP, safety net usage and tax receipts, more than two years after the recession was officially deemed "over?" It's not recession and it's not recovery so it's...
 

imreallyperplexed

Council Member
An austerity strategy for the middle class coupled with gigantic tax cuts for the very wealthy (which is the essence of Romney-Ryan) doubles down on the Bush/Republican supply side policies of 2000-2008. Bush was just not as big a supply-sider as ideologues like you.

Obama is a return to Bill Clonton despite your attempts to spin it otherwise.

Well your analysis is a bit off. Bush was no supply sider. Taxes = Spending (current + deferred). From this simple formula it is easy to see Bush was a Kloset Keynesian. On the other hand, Bill (the era of big government is over) Clinton WAS a supply sider (and the economy responded, as one would expect, extremely well). The only President whose policies Obama is "returning to" is George W. Bush's.
 
Some finacial Guy said it was always better to have a

Just to be clear, when Democrats blame GWB for driving the American economy into a ditch and leaving a mess for the Obama Administration, they are using GWB as a symbol for GWB AND a Republican Congress AND a set of misguided economic policies (fiscal and regulatory).

In other words, you can't really blame GWB directly. You have to place the blame on failed Republican economic policies. What you see this year among all the major Republican candidates is a rehash and a doubling down on the same failed disastrous policies that were promoted by Republicans during the Bush years. Why go back to the same set of misguided policies that dug the hole.

The economy is beginning to come around. Though Republicans will promise a new dawn, what they will deliver is the same old misery.
Budget to work with when discussing these kind of things.
 

imreallyperplexed

Council Member
Lukey,

You and I both know that your preferred supply-side nostrums would just have made things even worse for the vast majority of the American people. You and your supply-side fellow travellers are full of empty promises. You are just a reply of the sort of rhetoric that Bush and Cheney used about WMDs in Iraq. It is bait for the easily deceived.

Woefully inadequate MaryAnne.

awww.zerohedge.com_sites_default_files_images_user5_imageroot_2012_01_Participation_20Rate.jpg
 

imreallyperplexed

Council Member
It makes a difference that Republicans want to coddle the very wealthy. The only way that Republicans know to balance the budget is on the backs of the middle class and the very poor. Republicans are not interested in balancing the budget or cutting the deficit. They are interested in waging class warfare on behalf of the very wealthy (and enablers of the very wealthy like Grover Nordquist.)

Budget to work with when discussing these kind of things.
 
It makes a difference that Republicans want to coddle the very wealthy. The only way that Republicans know to balance the budget is on the backs of the middle class and the very poor. Republicans are not interested in balancing the budget or cutting the deficit. They are interested in waging class warfare on behalf of the very wealthy (and enablers of the very wealthy like Grover Nordquist.)
You are right by and large Republicans are not interested in those things. In fact Bush and Obama have few differences. Why do you think Tea Parties and OWSers were formed?
 

Lukey

Senator
An austerity strategy for the middle class coupled with gigantic tax cuts for the very wealthy (which is the essence of Romney-Ryan) doubles down on the Bush/Republican supply side policies of 2000-2008. Bush was just not as big a supply-sider as ideologues like you.

Obama is a return to Bill Clonton despite your attempts to spin it otherwise.
You certainly are perplexed. Where was Bush's "austerity?" I saw nothing but rapidly rising spending and ever widening deficits throughout his Administration. And that is exactly what has continued under Obama. He may want to raise tax rates, but absent spending cuts he will (like Bush) not have achieved his goal of "fixing" the deficit (which will continue to grow as his spending appears to have no bounds) and the economy will likely continue to stagnate. That is NOT "Clinton" policy - Clinton DID have austerity (the end of welfare as we know it?). I'm simply laying out the facts here. You can choose to reject them if you want to but it won't make you correct.
 

imreallyperplexed

Council Member
Obama is far from Bush. He is the return of the sanity of Clinton.

BTW, what is the tea-party policy for economic growth and cutting the deficit. What is the OWS platform?

You are right by and large Republicans are not interested in those things. In fact Bush and Obama have few differences. Why do you think Tea Parties and OWSers were formed?
 

imreallyperplexed

Council Member
You missed the point. The Bush tax cuts - espeically those on the very wealthy - did not stimulate economic growth. They just increased the deficit. Supply-siders want to double down on Bush by promoting auserity AND doubling down on Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy. Very bad medicine for the economy.

That said, the growth of spending does need to be reined in (ala Clinton). What Democrats disagree with Republicans on is the depth and consequences of ideologically-appealing but empiracally-questionable austerity programs.

You certainly are perplexed. Where was Bush's "austerity?" I saw nothing but rapidly rising spending and ever widening deficits throughout his Administration. And that is exactly what has continued under Obama. He may want to raise tax rates, but absent spending cuts he will (like Bush) not have achieved his goal of "fixing" the deficit (which will continue to grow as his spending appears to have no bounds) and the economy will likely continue to stagnate. That is NOT "Clinton" policy - Clinton DID have austerity (the end of welfare as we know it?). I'm simply laying out the facts here. You can choose to reject them if you want to but it won't make you correct.
 

Lukey

Senator
No one rejected the Bush?Cheney WMD arguments more vociferously than I did, and I'm crediting Bill Clinton for his economic success, so which one of us is the partisan ideologue here? As I have pointed out (repeatedly) the only President to actually deploy supply side economics was Clinton. You may not want to believe that but go look at government spending levels during his Administration. Big government crowds out the private sector and the economy suffers. It happened under Bush and it is continuing under Obama. Exactly what Bush economic policies has Obama reversed?
 
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