Lack of Executive Experience

[drig23]

What worries me about the current crop of Democratic front-runners is their lack of executive experience. In my opinion, and I dare say it's not an unpopular opinion, decades in the Senate is not as good as months as a Governor for a presidential candidate. The last candidate to win election without executive experience was...well, John Kerry, but the last to actually take office was JFK. And, this is for good reason. Kerry only did as well as he did because his competition was so weak. People want to know that the President has the experience necessary to do the job.

Hillary - 1st Lady is not an elected executive post
Barak - closest he's come to executive experience is running the community group in Chicago
Edwards - He ran a large company, but we've had our first "CEO President" and he sucked. We need real, elected, executive experience

On the other hand, the Republicans have fielded some liberals who have executive experience.
Mitt - Governor of Massachusetts
Rudy - Mayor of New York. Normally, we want Governors, but NYC is bigger than many states
And some neo-cons:
Formerly Fatty - Governor of Arkansas (we recently had a really good Governor of Arkansas in the Oval Office)
Gilmore - Governor of Virginia

But, I don't think the really conservative politicians have a chance of getting elected. We learned that electing stupid (W) and crazy people (Cheney, Ashcroft, Rummy) is bad for the country. I like the formerly fat guy, until he tells me that he doesn't believe in evolution or global warming. I could almost deal with Mitt, except he wants to double Guantanamo. Rudy's incompetent and we already had an incompetent administration and it sucked.

So, does the right actually have a competent, intelligent, sane candidate that has executive experience?

To find it on the left, you have to go all the way down to #4, the Hispanic guy who likes to drink a lot.

And, don't say the Law and Order guy. Being a lobbyist doesn't make you fit for the presidency. Quite the opposite.

-drig23

P.S. Yes, it scares me to think that Senor Arbusto is more qualified to be President than the top 3 Democratic contenders.

[nohil-billy]

Hey Drig, back from licking your wounds and already talking sh*t. Guess it shows what you're made of.

You are living proof of what the main stream liberal media can do to the uninformed mind.

After eight years of watching the military and our intelligence community decimated by the sexual predator from Arkansas who allowed 9/11 to happen because of his inaction, we can now feel safer knowing that we have an administration that will use the force necessary to keep the country safe from terrorism.

This administration has cut taxes while fighting a 12 billion dollar a month war, yet the deficit continues to recede and the stock market and tax revenues are at record levels. All of this after the worst terrorist attack and worst natural disaster ever suffered by this country. Only a mush-minded liberal could construe this administrations success as stupid.

You and Bill Clinton remind me of the big 6'5", 350lb, mentally challenged kid who stands on the street corner with an addled look on his big grinning face, thinking that all the smaller kids who punch him, poke him, and deride him are all his friends.

Glad to have you back!!!

[drig23]

Yeah, it's been a while and it's good to be back. Sorry to any who missed me. It's been so long I didn't think I'd be remembered! Like how most Republicans don't seem to remember who was supposed to be protecting the country on 9/11. Just a hint...it wasn't Bill Clinton.

But, you're right, Mr. Bill didn't save us from the terrorists. After the Republicans attacked America on 4/19/1995, we should have *done* something. Pass a Patriot Act and look into any who share Timothy McVeigh's poilitical party and ideals. It's a destructive ideology that wants to kill children and destroy the American way of life. We should not have let American Republicanism to stand and continue to threaten our children. Bill let us down and dangerous people, like the nohil-billy, are still wandering the streets.

By the way, do you know what Mr. Bill was doing while the Republicans were killing children? He was meeting with the Turkish Prime Minister. In other words, working. What was Senor Arbusto doing on 9/11? Campaigning. I guess hard work is an "elitist liberal ideal".

Okay, to rebut a few strange claims that the nohil-billy brought up:
"This administration has cut taxes while fighting a 12 billion dollar a month war" It's up to $16B now. And, that's not something to be proud of. Remember when the Republican Party stood for financial security?

"the deficit continues to recede" I'm not sure you know how deficits work. It means negative income. It means that we're still spending more money than we're taking in. Lower deficits isn't something to be proud of. Surpluses are. All this statistic means is that Senor Arbusto is doing better than he did in the first few years of his presidency. It doesn't mean he's doing better than his predecessor. It's easy to hit a good mark when all you compare against is this current administration.

"tax revenues and the stock market are at record levels". Tax revenues are *always* at record levels. That's how the economy works. The last time tax revenue didn't go up was from 1982 to 1983. Before that, you have to go back to 1970-1971. Tax revenue went up every year under both Clinton and Carter. The only time in the history of the American tax system where tax revenue did not rise for 2 years in a row happened during this administration (2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004 all saw lower tax revenue than the previous years). The guage is how much its risen, not whether it has risen at all. See [LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This No Hillary For President Forum Link.

The same is true for the stock market, but I don't have the stats on hand. Suffice it to say that the stock market did better under Mr. Bill than under Senor Arbusto. If anyone wants to argue this point, I'll find the data.

Hey, this is funny. Check out this link: [LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This No Hillary For President Forum Link. (cbo.gov is the Congressional Budget Office). It says that the "overall increase in (tax) revenues as a share of gross domestic product (GDP) since 2003 is disproportionately accounted for by increases in corporate income tax revenues." As a small business owner, I'm happy to see that the tax increases have come from companies like mine. But, the bulk of Republican voters do not own companies and have not seen their income rise as much as a quick look at the tax revenue would suggest. And, I can attest, the tax revenue gained from my company has been a result of hard work (which is why I've been absent recently) and not some magic government pixie dust.

But, look, I didn't mean to rehash this old argument. No one on this board is going to be swayed by stats and reason. My post was about the lack of experience on the Democratic candidates. We don't really need to talk about the Republicans killing children or Bush ruining the country.

-Dave

[nohil-billy]

You are indeed the "Prince of talking points" Drig.

So, one idealistically deranged idiot who bombs a federal building equates to Republican terrorism? Were his actions sanctioned by the Republican Party? I know that the actions taken at Waco and Ruby Ridge were sanctioned by a Democratic administration. I guess sanctioning the murder of children in a church, and the shooting of a woman holding her baby are okay if a Democratic office holder says so.

As for 9/11, do you really believe that the attack was planned between Jan. 21st and Sept. 10th of '01? No, it was planned years before while that chicken sh*t sex addict refused to give our intelligence forces permission to take out Osama on seven different occasions. And since when did leaning back in your chair and saying "Ahhhh, that's it baby" become the definition of hard (no pun intended) work.

As for tax revenues going up during Slick Willy's administration, it's really not that hard to show a surplus when you do it on the backs of John Q. Public as Slick Willy did when he passed one of the largest tax increase in U.S history. If I were to stick up everybody in my town for a thousand dollars, I'd be showing a hefty surplus too. There is nothing creative about strong-arming the tax payers to show a surplus.

Perhaps you don't understand how supply side economics works. When you let the people keep their money, they buy more. When they buy more, you have to make more and therefore hire more people to do so. In the end, your profits rise and therefore so does corporate revenue. You yourself point this out above. When you over tax the general populace it works in reverse causing inflation and unemployment.

Bill Clinton rode the dotcom bubble for years and enjoyed the residual effects of the Reagan tax cuts. When Clinton left office, the country was in a recession and it took a couple of years for Bush to straighten out the disaster that Clinton created. The same holds true for what Reagan had to do to straighten out the mess of the clueless Jimmy Carter.

Jimmy Carter??? I can't believe you brought that idiot up. You are indeed a mind-numbed robot for the Socialist Democratic Party

[Herb Schaffler]

Supply side economics has been shown to work 4 times during the last century and this century. Coolidge and Mellon's tax cuts stimulated the economy of the 20's, JFK's tax cuts stimulated the economy during the 60's, Reagan's tax cuts stimulated the economy of the 80's and 90's, and Bush's tax cuts have stimulated the economy of this decade.

[drig23]

Originally Posted by Herb Schaffler

Supply side economics has been shown to work 4 times during the last century and this century. Coolidge and Mellon's tax cuts stimulated the economy of the 20's, JFK's tax cuts stimulated the economy during the 60's, Reagan's tax cuts stimulated the economy of the 80's and 90's, and Bush's tax cuts have stimulated the economy of this decade.

I don't think you read my last post. I wasn't arguing about supply-side economics. nohil-billy said that increasing tax revenues proves it's a good economy. By that measure, the economy under Carter, which had increasing tax revenues every year, was *awesome*!!! But, it wasn't.

I have yet to hear a statistic that proves this economy is good because of the tax cuts. Just repeating the mantra "supply side economics works" isn't going to do it.

-Dave
P.S. Personally, I think the economy is good. I think it's a long-term effect of increasing productivity brought on by the vast expansion of computerization during the 1980s and 1990s. I don't think Reagan, Bush, Clinton or Bush had much to do with it. Higher productivity means either higher revenue or lower expenses, which result in higher tax revenues and a better quality of life.

[lenahan]

Originally Posted by nohil-billy

You are indeed the "Prince of talking points" Drig.

So, one idealistically deranged idiot who bombs a federal building equates to Republican terrorism? Were his actions sanctioned by the Republican Party? I know that the actions taken at Waco and Ruby Ridge were sanctioned by a Democratic administration. I guess sanctioning the murder of children in a church, and the shooting of a woman holding her baby are okay if a Democratic office holder says so.

As for 9/11, do you really believe that the attack was planned between Jan. 21st and Sept. 10th of '01? No, it was planned years before while that chicken sh*t sex addict refused to give our intelligence forces permission to take out Osama on seven different occasions. And since when did leaning back in your chair and saying "Ahhhh, that's it baby" become the definition of hard (no pun intended) work.

As for tax revenues going up during Slick Willy's administration, it's really not that hard to show a surplus when you do it on the backs of John Q. Public as Slick Willy did when he passed one of the largest tax increase in U.S history. If I were to stick up everybody in my town for a thousand dollars, I'd be showing a hefty surplus too. There is nothing creative about strong-arming the tax payers to show a surplus.

Perhaps you don't understand how supply side economics works. When you let the people keep their money, they buy more. When they buy more, you have to make more and therefore hire more people to do so. In the end, your profits rise and therefore so does corporate revenue. You yourself point this out above. When you over tax the general populace it works in reverse causing inflation and unemployment.

Bill Clinton rode the dotcom bubble for years and enjoyed the residual effects of the Reagan tax cuts. When Clinton left office, the country was in a recession and it took a couple of years for Bush to straighten out the disaster that Clinton created. The same holds true for what Reagan had to do to straighten out the mess of the clueless Jimmy Carter.

Jimmy Carter??? I can't believe you brought that idiot up. You are indeed a mind-numbed robot for the Socialist Democratic Party

Well, the nuts at Waco did fire on the FBI, but otherwise, you are right. Lowering taxes actually helps the government. People pay low taxes much more easily that high taxes, meaning the gov't spends less trying to track down tax evaders. Spending less increases the surplus (or decreases debt, if you use it for that). The big mistake with Supply-Side economics, god bless the Gipper, is that administrations who use it don't cut enough gov't programs. If we got rid of welfare, EPA, regulation, etc.. Supply side would work much better and help the economy. And the taxes we do collect would be low, but the sheer amount of money coming in from the tax payers to pay for the legislature, executive, judiciary, and the military and a few select programs would pile up into a surplus. And we could then lower taxes even more, or we could use the surplus to pay the nat'l debt.

[Herb Schaffler]

" I know that the actions taken at Waco and Ruby Ridge were sanctioned by a Democratic administration"

It's a common assumption that Ruby Ridge happened during Clinton's administration. It actually happened in April 1992 when George Bush Sr. was president.

[drig23]

Originally Posted by nohil-billy

You are indeed the "Prince of talking points" Drig.

No one is more so than you, nohil-billy. I'm not going to get into the details of what you said. They've been hashed over already. You really need to read a newspaper and get your head out of Fox television.

As Mr. Schaffler pointed out, Ruby Ridge was under Bush Sr. And, the terrorists at Ruby Ridge were Republicans. A whole pot o' Republicans shootin' at each other. Waco was a bunch of lunatic religious people. While I don't know about the political leanings of the Branch Dividians, religious people tend to vote Republican. I won't defend the outcome of that fiasco, but at least we Democrats didn't sit around saying "yeah, right on" when it happened like the Republicans did with Oklahoma City.

You say that cutting taxes increases tax revenue while raising taxes decreases them. Then, you say that tax revenues increased under Clinton because he raised taxes. So, if raising taxes reduces tax revenue, and cutting taxes increases tax revenue, then why did tax revenue increase under people who raised taxes (Bush Sr, Clinton and Carter), and drop when Reagan and Bush raised them? Maybe because tax revenue isn't a real measure of the health of the economy, and you were just repeating Republican talking points?

Look everyone, I understand supply-side economics. What you all don't understand is that these are not magic pills. Supply-side economics works when the producers ("supply-side") need money to invest in infrastructure. Like in the early 1980s. But, in 2000, the supply-side had just come through a boom, had new infrastructure and full warehouses. What we needed was to get money into the hands of the consumers. So they could buy the stuff in the warehouses. Investing in government projects, like rebuilding Ground Zero, improving port security and fixing the New Orleans dams, would have gotten both skills and money into the hands of the consumers. Instead, Bush gave money to the supply-side and they put it in savings, where it got invested in more companies that had no customers.

nohil-billy, you obviously don't understand supply-side economics at all. You said

Originally Posted by nohil-billy

When you let the people keep their money, they buy more.

Supply-side means that you give money to the suppliers, the companies, the producers...*not* the people.

Okay, rant done.

nohil-billy, lame insults don't help your case. "chicken-sh*t sex addict", "slick willy", "mind-numbed robot", "socialist", etc. Do you think you'll make me cry or something? I quote the CBO and you make insults. Sweet.

Originally Posted by nohil-billy

Bill Clinton rode the dotcom bubble for years

No argument there. Investing in education and technology in the 80s paid off big time in the 90s. We didn't really see much of it in the 80s because gradual increases in efficiency and productivity take a while to manifest themselves. Al Gore actually did a lot more for the economy in the 90s than Bill Clinton did, because he was the major driving force behind DARPAs funding of the Internet in the 70s and 80s. That whole thing about Al Gore inventing the Internet? Of course he didn't invent the Internet, Vinton Cerf and others did that. He merely convinced Congress to fund their efforts. When government funds the expertise of the American mind it results in wonderful things.

Of course, Republicans would have us believe that there isn't a single example of government spending that worked. I just gave you one, DARPA.

*phew* Enough. I need to get back to work.

-Dave

[Herb Schaffler]

Tax revenues increased under Reagan's and Bush Jr's administrations because of the tax cuts which stimulated the economy. The problem has been that government spending has outpaced revenue. Supply cuts do create more jobs which puts more money in the hands of consumers. Rebuilding Ground Zero and repairing after Katrina does not make sense as an economy booster. If that's the case, why don't we blow up all our buildings so we can rebuild them. That would create alot of jobs and put money into the hands of consumers, but look at where that money would have gone to, to areas where consumers would have preferred that money go to. The 19th century French economist Bastiat pointed out the fallacy of that kind of argument in his analysis of the "broken window" argument.

DARPA may have contributed to funding the internet, but it doesn't mean that that money could not have all come from private sources. Oftentimes the government gets involved in areas where it doesn't need to.