On Thu, 26 Jun 2008 12:15:39 -0500, Peaceful Bill
<snails.pace@highspeedturtles.net> wrote:

>SMS wrote:
>> still just me wrote:
>>
>>> The President shares much of the blame. He sets the direction. He
>>> carves out the major policies. He controls the agencies that submit
>>> the budgets. When his party is in full control of the Congress (as the
>>> Rep's have been for most of Bush's term) he shares an even larger part
>>> of the blame.
>
>Maybe a little lesson in gov't is needed....

Why don't you get some.

>The agencies are managed by lifetime bureaucrats. These were appointed
>/ hired when the programs were created and can't be removed easily. No
>president has the authority to completely clean house of all the
>lifetime bureaucrats except for "cause". The president also has to fund
>the bureaucracy which increases every year. Those budgets must grow to
>cover staffing and pay raises. Once a program is established, its
>nearly impossible to shut it down.
>>
>> Having a slight majority in congress is often of little benefit since
>> you can't pass legislation over the president's veto. You really need
>> both the congress and the presidency to get your legislation through.
>>
>
>The democrats are controlling congress with an iron fist. If there were
>problems, they must carry a significant part of the blame.
>
>More recently, the democrats have proven that they are primarily
>interested in critical rhetoric, not action.

They are controlling with an iron fist but not taking action?

>By far the biggest budget problems are due to entitlement programs
>created by well-meaning but misdirected politicians (mostly democrats).

I would say that the biggest problem is interest on the national debt.
It may be slightly smaller than what we spend on defense and HHS, but
we get nothing for it. The second biggest problem is defense. Still
less than HHS but grossly inflated over what is necessary. We spend
more on defense than the rest of the world combined. Who are we
defending against, Mars? The amount of money we have wasted in Iraq
is atrocious. The interest on that debt alone would cover HUD the
budget.

> These programs were used to buy the votes necessary to keep these same
>politicians elected and in power (see Chicago politics).

So the politicians are well-meaning but misdirected and they are using
the programs to buy votes. Seems like you need to make up your mind.

Under the Republicans, government functions were privatized by giving
(often no-bid) contracts to their corporate buddies. The outcome, not
surprisingly, is that the cost to the government (us) has skyrocketed.
(To be fair, Clinton is partially responsible as well, but then he
often behaved like a Republican.) Waste and fraud as well as high
profits are to blame.

>> What happens when the Republicans have both the presidency and congress
>> can be seen with the results of the Bush presidency. The biggest
>> deficits in history, gutting of key environmental legislation, housing
>> foreclosures, mega-mergers that reduce the competitive environment
>> driving up prices, huge increases in the cost of basic necessities like
>> fuel, food, and health care. This is just what Republicans do.
>
>Gutting key environmental legislation? How about the ethanol
>requirement pushed by the environmental movement.

When did ADM join the environmental movement? Was is before or after
the executives were convicted of price fixing?

> What a complete
>disaster to the food supply and environmental cluster ****. And how
>about MTBF? We just had to have that to clean the environment, right?
>Got into the watershed and created massive environmental problems.

MTBF is the alternative to ethanol for purposes of reducing
hydrocarbon emissions. The real problem is automobiles.

>And let's NOT forget ANWR. I've been there. Have you? You can't even
>find an oil well. Just a pipeline that runs south and a few small
>pumping facilities. And how about the extinction of all the caribou by
>building that pipeline? The population has gwon quite a bit since the
>pipeline was installed. And not necessarily due to the pipeline.
>
>So a lot of the "environmental legislation" legislation has been
>bullshit suggestions that aren't thought out very well and MUST have
>better scientific fact to back those efforts.

Environmental legislation has made a major improvement in the
environment, even as industrialization has expanded at a rapid pace.
Look to places where environmental laws are weak or nonexistent and
wheeze heavy industry is prevalent. Think China and Mexico - they are
environmental disasters. Even in America, pollution is a serious
health threat. Air pollution alone is like a 9-11 every month in
terms of fatalities caused..

>>
>> I was just up in Oregon, where the fishing industry is still reeling
>> from what Bush's interior department did to them by diverting river
>> water to corporate agriculture (that supported the Republicans
>> politically), effectively destroying the salmon industry. Now Bush wants
>> to cut the aid to the salmon farmers from $170 million to $100 million,
>> in order to use the $70 million to close a funding gap for the 2010
>> census.
>> "http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/dt.cms.support.viewStory.cls?cid=111503&sid=1&fid= 1"
>>
>
>The Pacific Northwest salmon "industry" has been in shambles long before
>Regan was president. You need to do a little more research and stop
>accepting these short-sighted reports. The problems there have a lot
>more to do with the damming of just about every major water flow that
>salmon used. That river damming effort was directed by FDR. Wasn't he
>a Democrat?
>
>Salmon farming is leading to an environmental disaster by introducing
>Atlantic salmon into the pacific waters. It has created major problems
>in B.C. and threatens salmon runs all along the coast from northern
>California to Alaska.
>
>All salmon farming in the Pacific Northwest MUST BE STOPPED IMMEDIATELY.
>
>Even if the salmon stocks are one of the five pacific salmon, farming
>dilutes the gene pool and will result in damaged to salmon by weakening
>the overall population genetics.
>
>You better do a little more study before spewing that kind of crap.
>
>
>> Here's a problem that Bush's policies created, and he then wants to
>> screw the people that be caused to lose their livelihood.
>
>Is this like screwing lumberjacks by taking away their livelihood?
>
>Their livelihood is bordering on an environmental disaster that makes
>the Exxon Valdez look like a dog crapping in your backyard?
>
>>
>> It's not exaggerating to say that nearly every major problem the U.S.
>> faces today is due to the policies pushed through by Republican
>> presidents all the way back to Reagan.
>
>But Regan came directly AFTER the VERY WORST president in history. The
>country still has not recovered from the Carter years.
>
>Every president since Carter has had to weather the disastrous results
>of his term. And he lead the new wave of democratic personal political
>corruption which reached its peak under Clinton. Even Bush and Cheney
>can't compete with Clinton's personal political corruption.
>
>
>If Obama wins the presidency,
>> he'll inherit a far bigger mess from W, than Clinton inherited from the
>> Reagan/HW Bush presidencies. Clinton was fairly successful in undoing a
>> lot of the damage from Reagan/HW, but Obama will have a far more
>> difficult task ahead of him.
>
>What damage did Clinton inherit? He got a reasonably stable country
>that was in the infancy of a technology explosion. He got to ride that
>wave for 7 years until the bubble (which was not of his making) burst.
>But don't get the idea that he was really showing a budget surplus.
>That was just on paper and based on unrealistic economic projections.
>
>We can't forget that Clinton buried the terrorist threat in legal fights
>rather than facing that reality head-on. Sandy Berger sealed the
>secrecy by stealing the documents that would have exposed the Clinton
>cover-up (just one of many cover-ups by Clinton). You can't treat a war
>criminal the same was as a jay-walker.
>
>And he was the ONLY president in history to be impeached. Anybody else
>that lies to a grand jury spends serious time behind bars regardless of
>the excuse. He left office in disgrace and destroyed a lot of data
>during the hand-over period to Bush. Clinton was, and remains an asshole.
>
>And as far as Obama is concerned.... Well, he can't possibly come out
>of Chicago politics and be clean. But then McCain isn't that great of
>an alternative, either.
>
>