Jack Kelly has more thoughts on Obama’s frightening ignorance of American history (hey, it would be nice if he could just figure out how many states there are):
Sen. Obama is on both sounder and softer ground with regard to John F. Kennedy. The new president held a summit meeting with Soviet leader Nikita Khruschev in Vienna in June, 1961.
Elie Abel, who wrote a history of the Cuban missile crisis (The Missiles of October), said the crisis had its genesis in that summit.
“There is reason to believe that Khrushchev took Kennedy’s measure in June 1961 and decided this was a young man who would shrink from hard decisions,” Mr. Abel wrote. “There is no evidence to support the belief that Khrushchev ever questioned America’s power. He questioned only the president’s readiness to use it. As he once told Robert Frost, he came to believe that Americans are ‘too liberal to fight.'”
…It’s worth noting that Kennedy then was vastly more experienced than Sen. Obama is now. A combat veteran of World War II, Jack Kennedy served 14 years in Congress before becoming president. Sen. Obama has no military and little work experience, and has been in Congress for less than four years.
If we elect someone as callow as Obama, maybe Khrushchev will be proven right.
[Update a little later]
Heh. Suitably Flip has a new lapel pin for Barack:
.[Late afternoon update]
Now he can’t even make up his mind. I guess he was for the unconditional meeting before he was against it.
Bill: You said that revenues were at a record, not just more than they were in some specific prior year. If you meant something else, you should have said so.
Bush’s tax cuts did not begin in FY2004. They began in FY2002. If you want to say that tax revenues are higher now than they were in the middle of Bush’s tax plans, yes, that’s true. But you’re just comparing tax cuts to themselves, and again, it’s not a record.
Besides, if record revenues vindicate tax policies, then clearly revenue went way up after Clinton raised taxes in 1993. You can compare the last year before Clinton, which was FY1993, to any later year you want, and the answer will be that revenues went up.
Also re another thing that you said, that you are in favor of freedom everywhere, for instance in Burma. Your feelings on that may well be sincere, but the fact is that Iraq is more than half of America’s foreign policy, Afghanistan is a big chunk of the rest, and everything else that the US says about freedom is just talk. The Burmese junta knows that the US won’t get involved with them at all as long as the Iraq war drags on. In fact they started waterboarding their people because Bush et al said that it wasn’t torture.
So you should understand that your support for freedom in places like Burma, in fact everywhere other than Iraq, is just hypothetical.
I don’t understand why we’re arguing about taxes here. First, no matter how you work it, it’s foolish to claim that tax revenue should or will go up merely because there was a tax cut a few years ago. Even if it is a true statement in the long term, you have significant delay between implementation of the policy and the revenue increase. Further, it’s obvious that lower taxes will break down at some point. For example, no matter how much economic growth occurs, a permanent 0% tax rate can’t increase tax revenue. There’s some point where decreasing tax rates means decreasing tax revenue. It’s a basic calculus theorem (well assuming tax revenue as a continuous function of tax rate).
Finally, maximizing tax revenue is not a worthy goal of government. While I don’t see the benefit to excessive tax rates (that is, tax rates so high that they diminish tax revenue). But at the same time, I don’t have a problem with lower tax rates even if they result in less government revenue.
Revenues have never been higher, a fact and a record. The EGTRRA was passed in 2001 with a slow, phased introduction of rate changes, very few of which went into effect prior to 2003. The JGTRRA was passed in 2003 and accelerated many of these rate changes. which is why I used 2003. The purpose of the tax cuts was to stimulate the economy, which they did because they freed up money for investment rather than being misspent by the government. Income redistribution schemes (higher taxes) have never created wealth but have limited its growth. The resulting increase in revenues from corporate and individual income taxes speak for themselves.
So far, the junta in Burma is not trying to kill us or expand their power into neighboring countries like the Islamists are now and Saddam did on several occasions. If you choose to ignore the geo-political importance of the middle east, I can’t help you. I am sincere in my beliefs for world democracy otherwise I would not have said so. I would like to see say India play a more important role in promoting democracy in that part of the world and apply pressure on Burma.
I find it interesting that many on the left vilifing Bush for not doing more about Burma and Tibet were the same ones burning flags and destroying property to protest the Vietnam war, a war were fighting to keep South Vietnam free from Communism. So explain to me how someone can be against freeing Iraq and Afghanistan and complain about not freeing Burma and Tibet?
Jim, in your tax rate analysis you mentioned $7206 per person. Not every person pays taxes either. The process of lowering a tax rate will indeed lower tax revenue, but the spending increase by the populace, including those that do not pay taxes, is the ultimate goal. Increased spending by the populace will eventually show up in increased tax revenue in the future as with increased spending, there’s MORE to tax. Clinton raised taxes and revenue went up…but then plateued and recessed, because the taxes go up, the populace stops spending. Then there’s LESS to tax and revenues go down. I will agree that labelling a tax rate hike or cut to a president in term is ridiculous, you have to let the history of the hike or cut show first. The hike in the Clinton administration eventually proved a failure. The cut in the Bush administration launched our economy after the tech bubble burst and 9/11. The (not true yet) recession is because of greedy banks doing stupid things. Again, I will agree (partially) thank further tax rate cuts may not work now, but that doesn’t mean it won’t stimulate spending.
Nat Burton wrote:
“…do you advocate liberating Burma? What about other victimized nations? Shall we liberate a new country as our budget allows – perhaps one every 4 years or so – until the world is free?”
Victimized nations? That’s an extremely odd way of putting the severe lack of liberty and individual freedoms in some nations. Hopefully you can see that when pointed out to you.
Anyway are you saying the people of Burma don’t have a right to liberty except the “liberty” provided by death? How about Sudan, Tibet, North Korea, Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, China, Libya, Zimbabwe, Pakistan, Gaza, Venezuela, Viet Nam, Cuba, or Lebanon? There’s more to choose from if they somehow all failed your criteria (whatever those might be).
Fact is the US is doing better than anyone else including the use of armed intervention when politically feasible, it’s the rest of the free world which ought to get its act together and contribute more (and I say that as a non-American). But meanwhile the US needs to continue true to the ideals of freedom (which translates directly into “no Obama” as far as I’m concerned).
Hmmmm. . .
>>Raoul Ortega wrote:
And Bush looked deep…
Lefties– Here’s a hint: Bush ain’t running this year.
If all you’ve got is to compare your candidate to him, and to say he’ll probably be marginally better than the worst possible President we’ll ever have, then you haven’t got much, have you?
But to claim he is the worst in a list that includes John Tyler, Millard Fillmore, James Buchannan, Ulysses Grant, Warren Harding, Herbert Hoover, Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter is almost beyond belief.
I consider the odds a bit better than 50% that G. W. Bush’s administration will eventually be considered the apex of US military power. It depends a lot on who follows him. Certainly, the flawed execution of the Iraq occupation will result in recruitment problems. And somebody needs to fix the procurement system for the US or eventually we’ll be competing with other powers with comparable military force and lower costs.