It has always been standard republican campaign rhetoric to promise no new taxes and fiscal restraint.. The republican voters all nod their heads in defiant agreement and put this years "Republican and Proud" bumper sticker on all their vehicles.
But a funny thing happens not long after a republican gets elected. he looks at the budget. Discovers that providing vital government services like police, fire protection, ambulance, planning, development, building and maintaining streets and bridges, employee costs, funding all the promises he made to constituent groups, national defense, regulation enforcement, and a million other things, costs a boatload of money.
We all fondly remember the transformative Ronald Reagan. (I dutifully bowed my head in honor of my right leaning visitors) We remember his tax cut. But he also raised taxes three times. Remember Bush I? "Read my lips. No new taxes!" He raised taxes also.
In my home state of Illinois we had a succession of three Republican governors. Every one of them said he wouldn't raise taxes. You guessed it. Once elected or re-elected, every one of them said "Oh my goodness! It's worse than we thought. We need to raise taxes." Of course they would always offer the obligatory promise that this was a one time thing and taxes would never be raised again.
Here's the message. When somebody tells you what you want to hear, smell his breath. Most likely it smells like shit because that's what the guy is full of.
34 comments:
Let's face it. Political promises are rarely kept. Even if the candidate is sincere in his heart, the presidency has a way of changing hearts.
Truth,
You have made a good point. Congress did raise taxes while Reagan was president, however, I would submit that had the budget been trimmed as he wanted, those taxes would not have been necessary.
Presidents are the captives of congress. No president has ever made a law or spent a dime, although Jefferson came close with the Louisiana Purchase. Congress has those exclusive duties under constitution. All the president has is the bully pulpit.
Elections certainly do strange things to those campaign promises don't they? As Sue said above reality is tough.
LAOT,
I believe that Reagan realized that he had cut the taxes too much and one of the tax increases was his own decision then as far as budget goes...
He wanted, he requested the greated increase in defense spending we have ever seen during peacetime...
Lets not let demagorary get the best of us...
You ARE An Asshole Blogger Just Rehashed Crappola.
Democrats own the Government. Democrats are The Man right now... After Inauguration day, you can stop blaming President Bush and Republicans in Congress (they haven't been in power since 2006) and tell us why President Obama is right in his decisions. You get no points attacking Republicans --
Welcome to the Revolution!
Which blogger is the asshole blogger?
Anonymous said...
Which blogger is the asshole blogger?
THE GUY THAT WRITES THIS BLOG.
It's gonna take more than a cert or two to clean up Obama's Hope an Change shit smellin pie hole.
Shitheads like the anonymous gand said Elijah was an asshole also.They said paul
They said Jeremiah wan an asshole. They said John the Baptist was an asshole. They said Paul was an asshole.
They said George Washington was an asshole. They said Abraham Lincoln was an asshole. They said Teedy Roosevelt was an asshole.
I'm in good company.
Thank you all for visiting...
Bebo makes the point.
Truth, I've noticed that you spend most of your time attacking Republicans. But as Bebo you guys own the government. At this point attacking the GOP is just boring....
Bush has only been gone since January Tom. Six months isn't a long enough time to forget it was he who left us an interminable occcupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. Bin Laden still free. And the worst economic crisis since the Great Dperession
But I certainly understand how Bush's fellow Republicans would want to forget the mess Bush left us.
TAO,
Thanks for the response. I don't know Reagan, although I did shake hands and briefly speak with him twice while on duty during his visits to my city, but I digress.
I am basing my thoughts on books that I've read, most lately the Reagan Diaries. Presidents can only request, cajole, and otherwise ask Congress to do anything. The veto is the weapon he has. He issued somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 vetoes.
As for the military build up, it forced the Soviets to match (Mutally Assured Destruction) as well as they could. As their economy was in a shambles it crumbled.
I wouldn't be so rash as to think that you would credit Reagan in any way for the collapse of the Soviet Union, so we'll just leave it that he was lucky to be the one in office when the downfall began.
He missed the wall coming down while he was in office, but he did see it fall. I'm sure he felt some feeling of accomplishment.
Thank you for the discourse.
Good day sir.
Sorry I mishit the keys I meant say about 80 vetoes. I should where my glasses when I type.
Well, over here in good ol' Jersey, we have had nothing but Democrats for years from the local government on. They have made promises they didn't keep and yet these schmucks around here keep voting them in. I guess my taxes at $4500.00 aren't quite enough. Our schools are putting out low results and yet, again, they keep voting him in.
Democrats are just as guilty of promising one thing and doing another. I think that award goes to all our representatives.
Sue makes a good point. When you get in there, reality suddenly takes over and things don't quite look the same as they used to. I'm sure that Obama is finding that out now.
I'm an independent so I have no love loss for democrats or republicans. I'm not thrilled with any representatives right now, especially Congress! Is it too much to ask to find someone that is able to see the problems that we face and handle them without breaking promises? Maybe my expectations are just too high?
I am sorry, I found my glasses it should be "wear." Sheesh!!!!!!!!!
LMAO @ Law & Order.....I was thinking to myself for a teacher, he should know better, but I decided to be nice and keep it to myself. LOL
I'd be a bit of a hypocrite then though because I don't proofread enough and make mistakes all the time! :-)
Dick Cheney said deficits and typos don't matter LAOT. All is forgiven.
LAOT,
Yes, we are seeing a reinactment of the Reagan years today with the situation of Obama...
Jimmy Carter started the break up of the Soviet Union with his propaganda programs via the CIA and VOA then of course the military buildup but most importantly it was Afghanistan the really forced the Soviets over the edge...
I cannot help but wonder if the military build up under the Reagan years and our own sitaution in Afghanistan is not somehow causing our current meltdown....
When Obama first took office, his #'s were sky high. 70% of the country was solidly behind him, and even many conservatives were impressed with his post election performance. Just after the election, many in the MSM were giddy. I read a copy of Time that featured Persons of the Year. Picks were Obama,the people for electing Obama, and Obama again, with Phelps 2nd. Obama has squandered much of that good will. According to Reports, Obama’s #'s have gone from a high of 69% in Jan.the day of his inauguration, with 44% of those approving to 51% in the most recent days.It’s not hard to find the reason for his drop. He has turned out to be more liberal than expected. With passage of the stimulus bill, he committed to spending, and with cap-trade and health care reform, he has commitmented to expensive and intrusive social programs.
Many liked the hope&change stuff, but many draw the line here. Many moderates shift from approve to disapprove, and many conservatives suddenly strongly disapprove of Obama’s policies.Not a bad thing. But there’s a catch. People who disagree with another politics can rarely restrain themselves to the issues—rather, the other person’s character.
A example of this is the lib response to Bush. They couldn’t accept that Bush happened to support different policies than they did instead, he was a stupid, uneducated hick controlled by Cheney. This about a man who went to Yale, and whose family has set down some pretty solid roots among the elite.
But when Bush nominated Pickering for a seat on the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2001, it set off an unprecedented political firestorm.
Despite Bar Association rating of well-qualified based on his prior service on the federal bench, a minority in the U.S. Senate steadfastly obstructed Pickering's confirmation.
(Continued)
In 04, Bush appointed Pickering to the 5th Circuit seat, which meant he could only serve until the end of the term instead of a lifetime appointment.
How did Democrats do this political mugging of Pickering?
They manufactured charges of racism against Pickering - and used the most damaging conservative white Southern stereotype to undermine a lifetime of work the judge had achieved to foster and further racial reconciliation in the state.
Pickering's confirmation hearing devolved into a circus of partisan politics as special interest groups conspired to deconstruct a good man's life.
Pickering, was tarred with trumped-up charges of racism primarily because of his personal religious views which pro-choice groups saw as dangerous.
As the Senate confirmation hearings unfold for Sotomayor, there are many similarities with the treatment of Pickering in the same process.
Democrats hold a 60-vote majority in the Senate and can now confirm Sotomayor with ease regardless of GOP opposition.
What happened to Pickering was a travesty. What's happening to Sotomayor is heading in that direction.
Sotomayor's prior legal decisions including those touching on issues of racial preference in hiring practices and 2nd Amendment rights - are fair game and should be examined carefully by the Senate. That's part of the confirmation process.
But as manufactured charges of racism against Judge Pickering by Democrats were wrong, so are they wrong when the same charges are manufactured by Republicans
There are other, more harmful attacks as well, and unfortunately some of them involve race. One, which I experienced, was a chain email, the gist of which was an unflattering photo of Michelle Obama next to a picture of monkey. Another example was a conversation I had with a conservative stranger; she suggested that Obama’s sterling college record was tainted by affirmative action and summer classes, which in her experience were apparently crutches used by “stupid” blacks to retake hard courses. (Speaking as a college student, taking very difficult courses during the summer isn’t exactly uncommon, nor is it done only by unintelligent people).
I am quite sure that distain for Obama won out over good judgment with the forward button.
When Joe Bidens son spoke about single parent Joe raising the kids and traveling back and forth by train to Washington the democrats at the convention cheered and cried. The media loved the story.
Now when Sarah Palin talks about raising her family with the help of her husband and being the VP the democrats and the press say she can't do both.
What a slap in the face to every woman.
Such tasteless joke probably won’t set the cause of race relations back twenty years, or give the Ku Klux Klan a new lease on life, or anything of that kind. They’re just nasty and tasteless, and hopefully they’ll die out soon. And they aren’t any nastier than thing liberals have been known to say about conservative politicians.
At the same time, while these jokes and attacks may be mostly harmless to society at large, they hurt the Repub party. Puns aren’t the lowest form of humor, racial jokes are, and racial attacks are the nastiest. A party, or a movement, is defined by its base and what discerning person would want to be part of a movement that thinks insinuating that a black woman looks like a monkey which Michelle Obama, by the way, really doesn’t is a hilarious and a bit of wit?
Our Chimp in Chief has found an answer to quiet down the rowdy and hard to control blogosphere. He is creating his own version of the Fairness Doctrine for the internet. His useful idiots in the television media apparently don’t think that he will would ever eventually turn on them. If they don’t see the hand writing on the wall now they are far dumber than Keith Olbermann. People need to start writing their senators and congressmen now!
Right on dude! I'm going to write a letter to Congressman Phil Hare right now telling him a guy that calls himself chichimama told me to write my Congressman.
That ought to carry alot of weight.
Would that new Fairness Doctrine put all anonymouses in Guantanamo? I could get behind that.
Puns aren’t the lowest form of humor, racial jokes are, and racial attacks are the nastiest. A party, or a movement, is defined by its base—and what discerning person would want to be part of a movement that thinks insinuating that a black woman looks like a monkey, which by the way Michelle Obama really does is a hilarious and cutting bit of wit?
Holy crap, it's really getting hot in here.
Are you kidding? The libs are all full of crap......The Crap & Tax bill passed the House based on - what? Global warming - excuse me, they had to change it to "climate change" to cover the fact that temps have gone down lately - and its massive threat to mankind? BS...there isn't any global warming, there is no threat. Its nothing more than a power and tax grab and always has been. Read this:
"Why do people think the planet is warming? One reason is that the temperature data from weather stations appear to be hopelessly contaminated by urban heat effects. A survey of the 1221 temperature stations in the US by meteorologist Anthony Watts and his colleagues is now more than 80 percent complete. The magnitude of putative global warming over the last 150 years is about 0.7 °C. But only 9 percent of meteorological stations in the US are likely to have temperature errors lower than 1 °C. More than two-thirds of temperature sensors used to estimate global warming are located near artificial heating sources such as air conditioning vents, asphalt paving, or buildings. These sources are likely to introduce artifacts greater than 2 °C into the temperature record."
And now The Pelosi-run assholes have passed the biggest tax increase in the history of the universe...fortunately the Senate still has to act on it...its not about the environment, warming or cooling or anything else...its about the people in power exerting that power over you and me and directing trillions of our money to their cronies.
Next!
Yeah man! How dare they direct money to Halliburton and Blackwater. Those dirty bastards.
Jennifer,
Thanks for not calling out an old guy when he is sometimes to vain (not vein) to wear his glasses. I hate leaving in another room and forgetting where (not wear) I left them. As I said, sheeeeeesh!!!!
Truth,
Who says you're not an understanding and thoughtful guy. How many people can be forgiving and get in a shot at Cheney and by extension Reagan, all at the same time. I am in awe.
I am both proud and humbled at your compliment LAOT.
And while you're here. You arte mote proficient with computer stuff than I am.
How are all these people from My Space finding TSR?
RufusRules said...
Puns aren’t the lowest form of humor, racial jokes are, and racial attacks are the nastiest. A party, or a movement, is defined by its base—and what discerning person would want to be part of a movement that thinks insinuating that a black woman looks like a monkey, which by the way Michelle Obama really does is a hilarious and cutting bit of wit?
RufusRules,
You must be really popular with the crowd that dresses in white hoods and sheets.
And you can take that as MY hilarious and cutting bit of wit.
Truth,
I coach high school girls soccer. I assiduously avoid My Space, Facebook and all social interactive sites. Old guy, young girls, bad combination.
I don't allow cell phones on the phone list because I want parents to know when I call their kids. I talk to students in my room with an open door. It is the times we live in, my friend.
I can say this. What I admire about you is that you kick ass equally on both sides. I admire an equal opportunity ass kicker.
Good day sir.
Truth, You continue to blog about how you think the opposing party is stupid etc And call them names as well as insult the members of that party. So what kind of response do you expect but what you are getting. Deal with racism and quit using it as an opportunity to race-bait. But if you are going to call people names and then “thank them for their visit” That will not cut it. How are your racist remarks any different from the comments that you are receiving?
Self-serving remarks and name calling are not MERELY completely disgusting, but it only opens the door for the kind of response you are getting here. Come on dude...admit it, you are just as bad as the conservatives that are attacking you. .
Matt: I have never represented myself as anything other than what I am. A Democrat. A small time party supported and Union man.
I will rot in hell before apologising for being any of those things.
If you have a problem with my style, join the club.
Oh, and of course. I never have figured out what you're about Matt, but I appreciate your stopping by.
TRUTH 101 said...
"Matt: I have never represented myself as anything other than what I am. A Democrat. A small time party supported and Union man.
I will rot in hell before apologising for being any of those things.
If you have a problem with my style, join the club. Oh, and of course. I never have figured out what you're about Matt"
You have never figured out what I am about?
Why, because i supported Obama in the election and I DARED to say that I have many doubts about him and his policies NOW?
Because I dared to have some regrets about him now? Well Truth, I have some news for you old buddy, I am not a kool-aide drinker or am I a blind follower of ANYBODY! Not for Liberals like myself or republicans or to anybody else. Yes I do have some doubts about Barack Obama now, MANY doubts. You questioned me because of what I wrote about his idiotic interfearance to the Professor gates and the policeman story! Well I still believe he was out of line and that he was wrong to put his big mouth into a situation that the president of the USA should stay out of.
I think that his Health care bill is a disaster as ar so many of his other bills. And I disagree with is decision on closing Gitmo. Look at what he has done on an issue-by-issue basis, generally speaking Americans are unhappy with what Obama is doing on a host of issues. As am I. None of it makes sense.
So maybe I WAS wrong in supporting him! So maybe I don’t support him any longer. So what? Am I a traitor because he fooled me? I have only one short life and I kinda like to live it the way I want. Not the way some socialist wants me to. Yes I do think that he is a socialist and that we are headed down that path, and I for one do not like it. And it’s not only me that thinks that way, Obama's approval rating are plummeting daily. If you can’t see that then you go right ahead and write blogs about how bad Bush was. But we can not blame Bush forever. It’s time to be honest with ourselves. As citizens we get the government we deserve.
It is funny how everyone here is either pointing fingers at George Bush or Dick Cheney or at Sarah Palin or at Rush Limbaugh, when we should be pointing fingers at us, we Americans. We created this mess we put Obama in office. George Bush didn't and George Bush as bad as he was did not create this mess we are in today.
Christ, how it pains me to say it, and to admit that I was wrong. My friend, I would like to take these last few moments of stubborn close-mindedness to say that it's been an honor to dig myself into this hole with you.
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