Thursday, February 07, 2008

Money! Bombs! Jesus!

Great article today on PoliGazette about the Republican Party.
Click here for the whole article.
A few lines to give you an idea:

The Republican Party consists of three wings.

First, there’s the Money! wing, whose guiding principal is: “Money. More.” Then the Bombs! wing, whose guiding principal is, “Grrrr! Rrrowf! Rrrowf!.” And finally the Jesus! wing which believes God made gays on the seventh day at a wild post-creation party. (During which God did several things even He can’t remember. And woe unto he who remindeth Him.)

We are down to three Republican candidates, and each is not only a representative of one wing of the party, but the mathematically precise representative of that wing. Each of the three is the perfect embodiment, the distilled essence, of his wing of the GOP. Quite frankly, it’s eerie.

Money! Mitt Romney.
Bombs! John McCain.
Jesus! Mike Huckabee.

Most election years you get a candidate who represents Money! and one for Bombs! and one for Jesus! And in the end, the GOP weights their selection, with Money! naturally carrying the most weight, while Jesus! gets lip service and one chance to embarrass the country before all of western civilization. But this year there is no compromise. No synthesis. No candidate who represents anything other than his own wing.

The only uniting factor this year is that Bombs! and Jesus! really, really despise Money!
Bombs! and Jesus! united in a burning hatred of Money! Wow. I don’t know who wrote this script, but I have to say, as a Democrat, I’m liking it.

Monday, February 04, 2008

Deficits

News Item:
President Bush introduced a $3.1 trillion budget on Monday that supports sizable increases in military spending to fight the war on terrorism and protects his signature tax cuts.
Bush projects that the deficits, which had been declining, will soar to near-record levels, hitting $410 billion this year and $407 billion in 2009. The all-time high deficit in dollar terms was $413 billion in 2004.

According to FactCheck.org the Clinton Presidency did balance the budget and erase the federal deficit:

This chart, based on historical figures from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, shows the total deficit or surplus for each fiscal year from 1990 through 2006. Keep in mind that fiscal years begin Oct. 1, so the first year that can be counted as a Clinton year is fiscal 1994. The appropriations bills for fiscal years 1990 through 1993 were signed by Bill Clinton's predecessor, George H.W. Bush. Fiscal 2002 is the first for which President George W. Bush signed the appropriations bills, and the first to show the effect of his tax cuts.