Can John kerry be fiscally responsible like Bill Clinton?

[KanigawaCards7]

I know that im going to get hammered in some fashion for my topic title, but it is so accurate. So far George W. Bush has ran the defecit up two trillion dollars. It is crazy. No president has ever spent money so carelessly. However Kerry's critics say that kerry wont be able to afford his programs. Although he will be able to "afford" them through the bush payment method, i agree that kerry has no way to pay for all his programs. Both men are incredibly liberal spenders, as opposed to Bill Clinton who balanced the budget. I believe that both men are leading us to an economic downfall. So the real question is can kerry be fiscally conservative like Clinton(obviously bush cannot). My answer to my own question is probably not.

[Dynasty]

The fiscal conservatives in the Republican party have started getting upset over government spending in the Bush administration. So, I think you can be sure the a Republican controlled House and a most-likely Republican controlled Senate will force the issue on a President Kerry. It's no coincidence that Clinton's spending came under a semblance control after the big Republican election wins in 1994.

[CORed]

The balanced budget of the Clinton years happened because of a combination of circumstances: The Democrats controlled Congress for the first two years of his administration, which allowed some of the Reagan tax cuts to be rolled back. The Eepublicans got control of Congress in 1994, and kept it, and they did a good job of controlling spending, while Clinton's veto power kept them from cutting taxes. The economic boom of the '90's greatly increased revenue.

If democracy has an Achilles' heel, it's fiscal responsibility. Cutting spending and rasing taxes are never popular, but often necessary. The Democrats' core constituecies benefit from spending programs, so the Democrats generally want to spend more. The Republicans' core constituencies benefit most from tax cuts, so Republicans always want to cut taxes. Neither party with full control seems to do a very good job of balancing the budget.

[KanigawaCards7]

excellent posts by the way thank you for the responses.

[Cyrus]

You made it short and sweet in your question so I'll try to do the same.

It is impossible for Kerry to do worse than Dubya. The economics of Bush Junior are like the worst nightmares of Bush Senior (him of the "Vooodoo economics!" proclamation fame).

There has never been a tax decrease by any country, anywhere, at any time on human history, when that country was engaged in a war effort. That li'l bit of fact includes the United States. As a matter of fact, of historical, undisputed fact, taxes have always been raised at such times. Always!

And although for obvious political/election reasons, Kerry does not come clean to the American public about this mathematical granite fact, Kerry is more likely to follow pragmatism over ideology and to be fiscally more responsible than Bush. (If John Kerry equals Clinton's performance, it'll be an added bonus) George W Bush is doing precisely the reverse, going for ideology over pragmatism, and quite passionately too.

Fo' mo' years -- of passion!..

[natedogg]

Just because no one has done a thing doesn't mean it can't work or isn't the right thing. Your argument about no nation ever lowering taxes in a time of war is a kind of appeal to popularity, I'm sure you realize.

Also this war is pretty cheap. As a portion of GDP it's the cheapest war we've ever had. If Bush had even an OUNCE of restraint he could have passed a balanced budget, including the tax cuts, but he gave away the store in an effort to please everyone.

His budget has been referred to as the "No Pork Left Behind" bill. Congress is equally at fault for rushing to feed at the trough. It's disgusting.

I'm definitely faulting Bush. He gets an F in fiscal responsibilty. But it's not necessarily because of tax cuts. Your arguments aren't quite valid.

natedogg

[adios]

This is not the worst deficit in history, far from it. Another victem of the Democratic party spin doctoring. Also the cost of borrowing money has been reduced greatly since Clinton took office.

I've brought this issue up many times before but I'll mention it again. In order to control federal spending one most control the growth in entitlement spending. The growth in medicare/medicaid spending can't be maintained at this pace. It is growing far faster than the economy is growing. This is where Dubya deserves a lousy grade IMO. He hasn't paid enough attention to this issue but it's somewhat understandable given what's transpired in his administration. Also, federal revenues are not back to their peak level in 2000, I don't believe that Kerry's proposals on taxes will get us there, and IMO the tax cuts have been stimulative as the budget deficit has actually been less than projections due to increased government revenue.

During the Clinton years defense spending as a percentage of GDP was reduced to the lowest levels we had seen since post WWII (I'm not laying this totally on Clinton). I believe that spending on intel was low during this time period and now that we have been shown that we are vulnerable to terrorist attacks on a grand scale, we've had to spend more money on security. Clinton I thought did some good things regarding controlling Medicare/Medicaid spending. I've pointed out that Clinton was much more of a tight wad regarding education spending as it grew at a rate of 2% in his administration. During the Bush administration it has grown at a rate of 11% or so annually. I would think the ABB faction would find this a positive about Bush but fairness to Bush doesn't seem to be something they're very interested in.

[hansarnic]

[ QUOTE ]
This is not the worst deficit in history, far from it.

[/ QUOTE ]

What was?

[ohiou]

"Cutting spending and rasing taxes are never popular, but often necessary."

Everytime in history that there have been meaningful tax cuts, the overall revenue raised by the government increased. It is a fact. Furthermore, the 2004 Nobel Peace prize winner for economics (I forget his name) said that the Bush tax cuts were not large enough. And that if they were larger, the economy would be much better off.

So get out of here with tax increased are necessary. They are only necessary to those social Marxist in this world who believe in leveling outcome, instead of opportunity.

[GWB]

CORed is on target here. Having Republicans control congress is the key to balancing the budget (or holding it down during wartime). Before 1995, the last time the Republicans controled both houses was during Eisenhower, and Eisenhower had balanced budgets and low deficits over this 8 years.

From 1995 to 2000 the Republicans were in control and deficits improved. In 2001 the Democrats took control of the Senate - the end of the good budgets. Of course a War against Terror means we are not in peacetime anymore.