Bush on MTP

[Z]

in the link below, andrew sullivan joins the litany of ardent bush-backers (including peggy noonan, john derbyshire, and many others) who have been roundly critical of the president's appearance on meet the press.

sullivan focuses on the conversation re: fiscal policy, an area where bush seemed especially incoherent / uninformed / dishonest yesterday.

www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=fisking&s=sullivan020904

[showcase]

What bothered me was his smug insistance that he has no second thoughts about Iraq. I thought the following piece summed it up pretty well:

The message from the White House has been: "You all just go about your business of being Americans, pursuing happiness, spending your tax cuts, enjoying the Super Bowl halftime show, buying a new Hummer, and leave this war to our volunteer Army. No sacrifices required, no new taxes to pay for this long-term endeavor, and no need to reduce our gasoline consumption, even though doing so would help take money away from the forces of Islamist intolerance that are killing our soldiers. No, we are so rich and so strong and so right, we can win this war without anyone other than the armed forces paying any price or bearing any burden."

This outlook is morally and strategically bankrupt.

...

"But the great mistake of the neocons and this administration," notes my friend George Packer, the New Yorker writer who has done great reporting from Iraq, "was to think that America could fight this war alone. We could not win the cold war without our democratic allies abroad, and without real sacrifice at home, and we cannot win this one without both either. This is a huge, long-term war of ideas that needs our public's participation and that of our allies. But this administration has never summoned that."

And here's a little something just for theBin, and right out of the Times, no less...

The antiwar left is wrong: however mangled was the Bush road to war, it is a war for the values of our civilization. But the Bush conservatives are also wrong. It can't be won with an "idealism" that is selfish, greedy, arrogant, incapable of self-criticism and believing that all that matters is our will and power and nothing else.

www.nytimes.com/2004/02/08/opinion/08FRIE.html?th

[thebin]

It was a poor performance and I am starting to get ticked off with his spending habits in this, his second disappointing outing in a row counting the last SOTU speech. The problem is- fiscal conservatives can't exactly vote for kerry either (Dean maybe) since his tax and spend record in the Senate is to the left of Ted Kennedy according to some watchdogs. The Dems would have done very well to have attacked Bush from the fiscal center. Kerry can't pull that off. Bush is in a rut, but I don't expect it, or the seeming-Democratic ascendency which is perfectly normal given where we are in the political calendar, to last through November

[Z]

for all of its shortcomings, "tax and spend" is a heck of a lot more fiscally responsible than "cut taxes and spend more!"

[showcase]

For what it's worth, fiscal conservatives probably COULD vote for Kerry; afterall, the prior Administration succeeded in generating a surplus with the guidance of a Republican Congress, and I don't see the Republicans losing control of both the White House and Congress anytime soon.

I agree that it's pretty early in the election cycle to be speculating about non-staunch-Democrats voting for Kerry. Just how much of his $200 campaign fund has Bush tapped into, anyway?

[thebin]

Z said:

for all of its shortcomings, "tax and spend" is a heck of a lot more fiscally responsible than "cut taxes and spend more!"

Maybe. Maybe not. If the tax cuts stimulate enough growth.....

(Neither way is my way BTW.)

[nychoya3]

You can splice and dice the numbers as much as you like, but you can't find a serious economist who thinks taxes have such a dynamic effect on the economy that new revenue from growth will outweigh the lost revenues to begin with. Don't obfuscate on this - the lion's share of the current structural deficit problem we are facing is because of a decline in tax revenues, largely brought on by the Bush tax cuts. Pure and simple. Moreover, we can't cut our way out of it - either on the tax or spending side. We will need to raise taxes, and sooner rather than later. The ponzi scheme that has been Bush's economic policy is not a sustainable policy.

The dishonesty is simply breathtaking.

www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=27156

[TrueHoyaBlue]

A friend of mine, staunch Republican, has been disgusted by the fiscal policies embraced by this administration, and both houses of congress. He has argued that a Democrat in the White House would provide exactly what the GOP congress needs in "getting back to their roots."

As he argues, the repubs are always at their peak of ideological purity when they are faced with a Democratic president. It is at this point that they have an "evil" face to place with the dangers of overspending -- see 1994 -- and therefore, the motivation needed to cut budgets... I think there is an added element at play here, that being the Bush admin's even larger than usual influence over many aspects of the G.O.P., an influence that is starting to show slight decline, at least among fiscal conservatives.

[showcase]

TrueHoyaBlue said:

A friend of mine, staunch Republican, has been disgusted by the fiscal policies embraced by this administration, and both houses of congress. He has argued that a Democrat in the White House would provide exactly what the GOP congress needs in "getting back to their roots."

As he argues, the repubs are always at their peak of ideological purity when they are faced with a Democratic president. It is at this point that they have an "evil" face to place with the dangers of overspending -- see 1994 -- and therefore, the motivation needed to cut budgets... I think there is an added element at play here, that being the Bush admin's even larger than usual influence over many aspects of the G.O.P., an influence that is starting to show slight decline, at least among fiscal conservatives.

The yin & the yang, baby, can't have the yin withouth the yang...