posted
Lisa, don't forget stealing it from the rich! [Edit: What a great ToPP.]
fugu, I think his arguement on most of the spending things has been basically "If we end the war we have the money." I'm not sure I buy that though, becauses if we end the war we probably still have massive debts and deficits.
posted
It doesn't add up. While Iraq costs a lot, it costs a lot less per year than the initiatives he just proposed. More like a tenth to a fifth. And, as you note, not spending the money on Iraq does not mean it makes sense to turn around and spend it somewhere else.
Whatever his argument, his real action if he is elected will be to not do some of the things he has promised (in the first year, no less). I suspect the disparity will be extreme. No doubt he will blame a lot of this on Congress.
Just another disappointing political grandstander.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote:It doesn't add up. While Iraq costs a lot, it costs a lot less per year than the initiatives he just proposed. More like a tenth to a fifth. And, as you note, not spending the money on Iraq does not mean it makes sense to turn around and spend it somewhere else.
Whatever his argument, his real action if he is elected will be to not do some of the things he has promised (in the first year, no less). I suspect the disparity will be extreme. No doubt he will blame a lot of this on Congress.
Just another disappointing political grandstander.
Sure it does, you just have to realize that other programs are going to get lots of budget cuts -- even with out the Iraq War the military budget is something like 300 billion a year. Slash that and there's an easy 10 billion. Add to that changing up the tax system to remove the Bush cuts, and there's some more money.
Regardless of the above, when any presidential candidate says "I will..." what they mean is "I will try..." because that's all that they can do. Congress gets the final say on any laws and the president can only do their best to convince congress to go along with them. Obama's proven pretty damned good at it in the past though, so I would trust him to get stuff done as well as anyone possibly could.
Posts: 3295 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
Some of you posters seem to have little ability to read accurately or think logically. I did not say I believe Sen. Obama sides with terrorists--I said this has become a question that will logically be asked, which he will have to answer. He did not need to answer it before.
What his wife said cannot be explained away, because it was so definitive--"For the first time in my adult life" she said. And it was a written speech, which she delivered in two places. If she simply misspoke, and did not really mean she was never proud of her country before her husband ran for office, then let her say so! I for one would like to see her senior thesis at Princeton unsealed (it has been sealed until after the election), if only to allay suspicions that it might contain some anti-U.S. invective dissing the country and military, the sort of thing we have heard recently out of the benighted town of Berkeley, California.
This is a bigger problem than the Obama campaign seems willing to admit it is. The only reason it is not immediately fatal is that it was not the senator himself who said it.
And he has said some things that were not entirely friendly toward Israel in the debates--which does LOGICALLY raise questions whether U.S. policy toward Israel would change if he becomes president.
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posted
I think that there is a difference between being proud of what our country stands for and believing that we live up to those ideals.
I, too, find myself seeing the response to Senator Obama's campaign as evidence that we can live up to some of those ideals.
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posted
Please provide the math that reaches even half of one trillion dollars in budget maneuvering room, Alcon. I can't find it anywhere, and I can do the simple calculations that show the programs Obama proposed in his Houston speech would reach or exceed $1 trillion.
Are you even reading what you're typing? $10 billion is one hundredth of $1 trillion. An "easy $10 billion" gets us nowhere. Cutting the entire military budget would get us less than a third of the way to one trillion dollars, and it isn't clear there will be room to cut much of anything, since Iraq has left us with some serious operational deficiencies.
As for, I will try, if he intends to seriously try for the programs he has committed to, he is incompetent to be President. That he is not going to actually try for them is the more charitable interpretation.
edit: I still prefer him slightly over Clinton, I think, but I'm not going to be voting for him.
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Some of you posters seem to have little ability to read accurately...
...
If she simply misspoke, and did not really mean she was never proud of her country before her husband ran for office...
After saying that other posters can't read accurately, you misstate what Mrs. Obama said for the second time.
She did not say "for the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country." She said -- as Enigmatic pointed out three posts below your initial post on the subject -- "For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country" (emphasis added).
The two statements are not the same. If you want to continue the discussion, I suggest you make an argument that is predicated on what Mrs. Obama actually said.
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posted
I'm just waiting for the candidate to come along who will promise "Heaven on earth," and say it can be done without busting the budget.
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Some of you posters seem to have little ability to read accurately or think logically. I did not say I believe Sen. Obama sides with terrorists--I said this has become a question that will logically be asked, which he will have to answer. He did not need to answer it before.
And again, your criticism is more accurately directed at yourself than at others. Who here said that you believe Sen. Obama sides with terrorists? I see several people disagreeing with the idea that the question needs to be asked. I see nobody saying "Ron said Obama sides with terrorists!" As usual, you're either grossly misunderstanding everything or you're just making up strawman arguements to knock down.
posted
The more I think about what Michelle Obama said, the more I see it as a slight against Clinton as much as against Bush. Anyway, Cindy shouldn't have gone there.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote:Are you even reading what you're typing? $10 billion is one hundredth of $1 trillion. An "easy $10 billion" gets us nowhere. Cutting the entire military budget would get us less than a third of the way to one trillion dollars, and it isn't clear there will be room to cut much of anything, since Iraq has left us with some serious operational deficiencies.
I was just thinking about the program he proposed to provide bonds and such $10 billion. I haven't had a chance to listen to the full speech. I'll do that and see what the math comes up with, but so far his speeches have generally been far too vague to be able to do any kind of math for them. Sorry I didn't make that clear.
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posted
Actually, I find the response to Michelle Obama's remarks more interesting, as a discussion outside of this particular political issue, anyway.
The one where she said something like, "I always have been and always will be proud of my country," something along those lines.
Boy, what a load of crap that is! It's my home, and I can't see myself ever not loving it as my home, but I won't say I will always be proud of it. I certainly wouldn't have been proud of it had I lived in the Jim Crow era, for example.
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Twinky, I quoted Michelle Obama correctly. You and Enigmatic are inserting a word she did not say.
Actually, that's not quite right. She said it twice -- once the way you attributed it and once the way we attributed it. I apologize, since you did correctly quote something she said; however, Enigmatic and I have not misquoted her.
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posted
So are people who are proud of their children no matter what also full of crap? Persistence of an emotion can be as important as frankness.
What is a problem is that she didn't conduct herself as a lady, but apparently contradicting another lady.
P.S. That is, she referenced what had been said earlier and then said she was always proud. If she'd just said she was always proud without mentioning that it was in contrast to anything earlier, there wouldn't be an issue.
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quote:This is a bigger problem than the Obama campaign seems willing to admit it is. The only reason it is not immediately fatal is that it was not the senator himself who said it.
The only reason that it isn't fatal at all is because the people who view it as a problem would probably never vote for Obama, let alone a democrat or a liberal, in the first place.
And those people, I would guess, comprise a rather small minority.
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quote:So are people who are proud of their children no matter what also full of crap? Persistence of an emotion can be as important as frankness.
What good is pride in someone if it's unwarranted? If, for example, I had a child and that child grew up into someone who dealt drugs to kids and was also a serial rapist, no, I would not be proud of my child. To use an over-the-top example.
You can love someone despite their flaws and mistakes. In fact I think it's critical to do so, especially regarding one's children. To me that's a part of love. Pride in someone else is different.
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quote:If, for example, I had a child and that child grew up into someone who dealt drugs to kids and was also a serial rapist, no, I would not be proud of my child. To use an over-the-top example.
Do you think it is at all likely that children you may have will grow into people who deal drugs to children and become serial rapists? If not, why would this enter consideration when you were talking about your future pride for them?
If someone has faith that America is going to be something that they are going to always be able to take pride in, I don't see how that could be considered a bad thing.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
Here is the article where I pulled the Michelle Obama quote from. I did not insert any words into what she said. However, I didn't know she'd said it slightly differently in a different speech, so that clears up some of the confusion there. I still think Ron and other conservatives are overreacting to the line, but considering how poorly other attacks have been sticking to Obama I'm not surprised.
As for the calls to have her or Barack clarify what she meant by it:
quote: In an interview with San Antonio radio station WOAI Tuesday, Barack Obama said his wife's comment has been taken out of context.
"Statements like this are made and people try to take it out of context and make a great big deal out of it, and that isn't at all what she meant," he said.
"What she meant was, this is the first time that she's been proud of the politics of America," he also said. "Because she's pretty cynical about the political process, and with good reason, and she's not alone. But she has seen large numbers of people get involved in the process, and she's encouraged."
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In the grand scheme of delegates: People have been saying for some time that neither candidate will probably be able to get enough pledged delegates to win without counting superdelegates. If states continue to split in the 60-40 range (and they probably will), they're right. But I started looking at how many pledged delegates are left unaccounted for, and it looks like at the moment it's still technically possible for either candidate to get the 2025 in pledged delegates, but not for much longer. On March 4th one or both of them will go from "incredibly unlikely to win on pledged delegates alone" to "actually impossible to win on pledged delegates alone."
Also, for Clinton to catch up to Obama in pledged delegates now she'll need to start winning states with around a 60/40 lead. (Edit: I mean EVERY state with a lead like that, not just TX, OH, PA.)
quote:Originally posted by Alcon: I was just thinking about the program he proposed to provide bonds and such $10 billion. I haven't had a chance to listen to the full speech. I'll do that and see what the math comes up with, but so far his speeches have generally been far too vague to be able to do any kind of math for them. Sorry I didn't make that clear.
posted
Obviously I don't, Mr. Squicky, since I called it an over-the-top example.
My point is that having faith that America is always going to be something we can be proud of is a dangerous thing, I think. It breeds complacency. Yes, I realize she didn't go into specifics, but she did speak in an absolute. I think it smacks of taking it as a given that America is great and worthy of pride.
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posted
Well, apart from the theological point that pride is a sin, I do think America is great, and its greatness lies in all that e pluribus unum crap, as you would have it.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
You are reading an awful lot into that statement.
Also, if you are worried that Michelle Obama is suffering from complacity, I've got to wonder 1) why you think this is important? 2) If you actually know anything about Michelle Obama? She's not exactly sitting back and not doing anything about the state of America. Her actions don't speak of a person who is complacent about America's character. If someone is engaged in shaping this character, and they express faith that this character will not become something to be fully ashamed of, that suggests to me commitment and a belief in what they and others are doing.
That seem admirable to me. Considering how you seem to be bending over backwards to squeeze some negative interpretation from this, I am not surprised you can't see it, though.
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Obviously I don't, Mr. Squicky, since I called it an over-the-top example.
My point is that having faith that America is always going to be something we can be proud of is a dangerous thing, I think. It breeds complacency. Yes, I realize she didn't go into specifics, but she did speak in an absolute. I think it smacks of taking it as a given that America is great and worthy of pride.
posted
Looking at the Blueprint, he exaggerated his plans when speaking in Houston. However, he also didn't mention some of his plans. I'd still put the amount required to implement his package at seven hundred and fifty billion to one trillion, using seat of the pants calculation (and being optimistic).
I only see at most a few hundred billion in budget freed up, leaving four hundred to eight hundred billion (per year) to come up with.
And I thought Bush was bad when his election campaign proposals neglected to account for one trillion dollars over ten years.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
Maybe he's counting on increased revenue from the immigration plan. 14,5000 x FICA withholding x 12 million was too large a number for my calculator to display. Okay, I think it's 21,576,000,000. Then again, a lot of those folks might start taking the EIC.
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posted
Sory, Rakeesh. I thought you were maligning Michelle Obama. Instead you are maligning Cindy McCain, who is also very active in determining the character of America. Switch the name from my above post. Everything else remains the same.
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posted
pooka: And 21 billion is still only a small part of what is needed (and there won't be 21 billion dollars of increased revenue from that, anyways).
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posted
Are those numbers including rolling back the Bush tax cuts, or just looking at spending? I think Obama and Hillary have both said they'd remove the cuts on people making over a certain amount ($200k or $250k? Not sure exactly.) I'm not asking to dispute what you're saying here, but because I don't know and I'm not going to be nearly as good at adding up this stuff as you are.
quote: The Web site also argues that superdelegates — or what the Clinton campaign is now calling “automatic delegates” — should not look to the primary season vote when deciding which candidate to support, stating, "The fact is: no automatic delegate is required to cast a vote on the basis of anything other than his or her best judgment about who is the most qualified to be president."
This really makes me wonder if she won't still drag it out to the convention even if she loses every state between now and then. It also strikes me as a really bad PR message to voters. While the claim is right that superdelegates don't have to vote along with the results from the primaries/caucuses, it seems like shooting the party in the foot if the majority of them don't.
posted
I assumed you left off a reference to McCain's wife too Rakeesh.
What I found funny and disingenuous about Mrs. McCain's response to Mrs. Obama mention of pride is that after her speech, Mr. and Mrs. McCain denied it had anything to do with Michelle Obama's speech. Now, come on!
posted
I wasn't maligning her, Mr. Squicky. I was criticizing a political statement she made, and sheesh, I said the statement 'smacks of' taking it as a given that America will always be a place to be proud of. Not that she is herself complacent.
Please stop trying to pick a fight with me.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:I said the statement 'smacks of' taking it as a given that America will always be a place to be proud of. Not that she is herself complacent.
The only way that that statement smacks of that is if you really try to make it negative. As I said, a person who is working to affect and define America's character saying that she will always be proud of has a readily available admirable interpretation.
If you think disagreeing with what I regard as a wrong and malignant interpretation of an admirable statement is picking a fight, I can't help you.
Neither Mrs. Obama nor Mrs. McCain deserves to have a statement affirming their faith in the country called a load of crap by you.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
I was surprised to hear, during Romney's last campaign speech, that he wanted to increase the military to 4% of the GNP. I had assumed it was more than that, and I would also imagine that figure excludes aid to Iraq and Afghanistan, which most people (rightly or wrongly) would see as part of the war on Terror. Boy there's a lot of pie charts out there. None of them supports anything like <4%.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Ah, so if we got rid of the entire US military and left Iraq and Afghanistan completely and instantly (I suppose that would happen naturally, what with getting rid of the entire military ), we might be able to fund the initiatives Obama has put forward.
Pooka: GDP is approaching $14 trillion. Not including Iraq and Afghanistan, the US military budget is about 3.5 percent of that.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
Oh, yeah. I had GNP and Federal budget mixed up, and I just realized my error after looking at that Death and Taxes poster for a while. I think in some part of my mind I understood it, since I was used to people talking about the ratio of GNP to Healthcare spending, which went from 6% to 20% in the last 20 years.
Is GNP different from GDP?
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote:If you think disagreeing with what I regard as a wrong and malignant interpretation of an admirable statement is picking a fight, I can't help you.
Mr. Squicky, please feel free, feel invited, feel whatever it takes, to stop trying to help me immediately if not sooner. At any rate, I'm done talking to you about this. Declare victory, or feel good about winning, whatever you like.
---------
For anyone else who is interested, to clarify something I said earlier: I do not think that Ms. Obama or Ms. McCain are 'full of crap', I think that the idea, "I will always be proud of my country," is a crappy idea. To me it is along the same lines as 'my country right or wrong', for example, or 'love it or leave it'.
Now, Ms. McCain when she made that statement, I don't think that she meant, "No matter what happens, even if we slip into a Twilight Zone episode and are all Nazis, I will be proud of my country." I rather think that she meant, "I cannot imagine America and Americans turning into something I would not be proud of, because I have faith in the decency of Americans and the effectiveness of our system of government."
But I have heard people say that they are always proud of America, and frequently it means, "I gloss over bad stuff."
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posted
Of course I didn't say that. But if the budget was trimmed to 90%, that would be $40 billion. Leave Iraq and you get ~$150 billion. Repeal the Bush tacuts and you get a lot, I have no idea how much. So when priorities shift with a new administration, you could free up money in the budget to tackle health care and other issues.
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quote:I rather think that she meant, "I cannot imagine America and Americans turning into something I would not be proud of, because I have faith in the decency of Americans and the effectiveness of our system of government."
So when you said that what she said was a load of crap, you meant this? I don't see how this deserves that description.
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I wish they'd stop changing the names of the amount of vitamins you need on the side of cereal boxes. It was RDA, then RDI, then DV. Some folks would put an O in there now and then.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
fugu, If you include the DOD budget, the budget for Iraq and Afganistan, the nuclear weapons program which is in the DOE, and veterans affairs the US military budget comes to 4.9% of our GDP.
Its hardly fair to consider the military budget without those factors. If you leave out the spending on WW II, what percent of our GDP do you suppose we were spending on defense in 1944? I suspect its darn near close to zero.
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posted
There is a technical difference in GNP and GDP. GNP is supposedly the GDP (the total value received for goods and services produced inside a country) plus the income for people inside a country received from sources outside the country.
They often seem to be used more or less interchangably though.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
I don't know, I saw one pie chart that included NASA as a military program. And I'd say Veteran's Affairs is clearly a social program. I'll buy the nuclear weapons as part of military spending. I don't agree that foreign aid to Iraq is different from foreign aid to Israel or... whoever else we give foreign aid to. Do we still give aid to Japan and Germany?
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
I don't think that Senator Obama has indicated that any of this would be immediate. I have gotten the impression or at least assumed that these are goals.
I could be mistake, but that was my impression.
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posted
Also, I've never heard any persuasive reason why percentage of GDP is a meaningful way to decide how much we should be spending on the military.
Shouldn't our military spending be a function of our defense needs rather than a function of our resources.
Right now the US spends more the military than the rest of the world combined. It seems like that level should be more than enough to match the resources any of our enemies will use against us.
If people can identify some defense need that isn't being met with the current resources and a good argument for why it can't be met by reallocating resources rather than increasing them -- that would be a rational argument for increasing military spending.
When people argue that we need to increase our military spending because our GDP has grown faster than the military budget I can't help rolling my eyes. Its like arguing that you've become malnourished because your salary increased by 20% but your grocery bill only went up 10%. I'm sure its an argument that is makes a great deal of sense to those who make their money on military contracts and want to see their industry grow at the same rate as the rest of the economy. But for those of us who don't think corporate welfare should be the primary mission of the US military its far less persuasive.
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