Comments on: BUSH AND THE BASE

By: OF Jay

OF Jay — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:00:00 +0000

Doc, I've just come to terms with the idea that The Bush Extravagance that many to the right of myself are angry about isn't half as bad as the Extravagance that a Dem president would have.

Now, what I wonder about is whether the "Bush is a RW Ideologue" meme folks do it because they want more (or everything) or if it is because it's Bush in the office.

By: McGehee

McGehee — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:00:00 +0000

I'm thinking "both." I've never heard a liberal complain about too much spending except in the Pentagon. And when the Cold War ended where did liberals want the "peace dividend" (savings from reduced defense spending) to go? Those who guessed "the taxpayers", please toggle SARCASM OFF. Leaving it on is kinda like not turning off your turn signal on the highway...

By: Brad DeLong

Brad DeLong — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:00:00 +0000

Bush's domestic policy is not so much 'left' or 'right' as simply incompetent. The deficit provides perhaps the best register of the degree of incompetence, after all. I am not by nature tremendously partisan: I could get very enthusiastic about, say, a broaden-the-base-and-lower-the-rates tax policy. I could get enthusiastic about a "privatization" of Social Security that would stop Congress treating Social Security revenues as the equivalent of general revenues to be spent on today's programs. But that's not what we have on offer, is it? ---