Jeb Bush Go Home!

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
61

[quote]H factor wrote:
You’re putting a feather in the cap of the man who decided it would be good to decrease revenue while drastically increasing spending? It’s incredibly irresponsible.

[/quote]

Except, you know, revenues didn’t decrease, and he collected more than Clinton.

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=200

In constant dollars, Bush had 3 years out of 8 that were lower than Clinton’s highest. On Average, Bush smoked Clinton in the revenue department, and Clinton had better overall economic conditions than 43 did.

Even if you pin 2009’s collections on 43, it is still the 3rd highest that Clinton ever saw, and it was the worst economic downturn the country had seen since the depression.

Bitch about the wild spending all day, it’s true. The “decrease revenue” talking point is bullshit of the highest order.

62

I know this is hard to grasp, and doesn’t appear to make a whole lot of sense, but simply put, cutting taxes does NOT automatically mean less revenues.

I can, and it has, but symbolic rate cuts and ending the marriage penalty really isn’t as drastic as many seem to think.

63

[quote]countingbeans wrote:
I know this is hard to grasp, and doesn’t appear to make a whole lot of sense, but simply put, cutting taxes does NOT automatically mean less revenues.

I can, and it has, but symbolic rate cuts and ending the marriage penalty really isn’t as drastic as many seem to think. [/quote]

Actually, cutting taxes has correlated with increased revenues, not all the time, but a lot of the time. The reason is that reducing taxes on individual transactions enables more transactions to take place. It’s the difference between trying to maximize profit on the sale of a single car vs. selling more cars on a more modest profit margin. It’s why a company like Honda or Toyota make way more money than a company like Ferrari or Aston Martin. Ferrari makes more per car, but Honda sells a lot more cars.
This is where the disconnect exists in the tax increase vs. tax decrease philosophy.
If you have a tiny country with a few people in it, you need high taxes to keep that country competitive economically. In a larger population, that’s more diverse, you need to keep the money moving and the way to keep money moving is to keep things affordable. Taxing people out of the ability to spend may increase the per transaction intake, but decreases the amount of transactions that can happen. Because my taxes have gone up this year, to the tune of about 20% compared to last year, I am actually taking in less money even though I supposedly make more. That, needless to say, has reduced my purchasing ability and I have to spend less to stay afloat. Which means That I am putting less money into the economy because more is being taken out at one time. Because taxes have increase, I cannot participate in the economy as much…Poor me. Now multiply the same problem I am having by 100 million and you have a significant impact on the economy.

64

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]countingbeans wrote:
I know this is hard to grasp, and doesn’t appear to make a whole lot of sense, but simply put, cutting taxes does NOT automatically mean less revenues.

I can, and it has, but symbolic rate cuts and ending the marriage penalty really isn’t as drastic as many seem to think. [/quote]

Actually, cutting taxes has correlated with increased revenues, not all the time, but a lot of the time. The reason is that reducing taxes on individual transactions enables more transactions to take place. It’s the difference between trying to maximize profit on the sale of a single car vs. selling more cars on a more modest profit margin. It’s why a company like Honda or Toyota make way more money than a company like Ferrari or Aston Martin. Ferrari makes more per car, but Honda sells a lot more cars.
This is where the disconnect exists in the tax increase vs. tax decrease philosophy.
If you have a tiny country with a few people in it, you need high taxes to keep that country competitive economically. In a larger population, that’s more diverse, you need to keep the money moving and the way to keep money moving is to keep things affordable. Taxing people out of the ability to spend may increase the per transaction intake, but decreases the amount of transactions that can happen. Because my taxes have gone up this year, to the tune of about 20% compared to last year, I am actually taking in less money even though I supposedly make more. That, needless to say, has reduced my purchasing ability and I have to spend less to stay afloat. Which means That I am putting less money into the economy because more is being taken out at one time. Because taxes have increase, I cannot participate in the economy as much…Poor me. Now multiply the same problem I am having by 100 million and you have a significant impact on the economy. [/quote]

Very well said Pat.

Lefties don’t seem to understand that it is better to increase the tax base (more people paying taxes) than to increase personal income taxes. Of course some of that is the class warfare game that they continue to play to pump up their constituency. Your explanation is one of the best that I’ve seen in a long time.

65

Did anyone else catch the full Jeb interview by Megyn Kelly last night?

66

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
Did anyone else catch the full Jeb interview by Megyn Kelly last night? [/quote]

I missed it, hit me with a few highlights.

67

[quote]ZEB wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]countingbeans wrote:
I know this is hard to grasp, and doesn’t appear to make a whole lot of sense, but simply put, cutting taxes does NOT automatically mean less revenues.

I can, and it has, but symbolic rate cuts and ending the marriage penalty really isn’t as drastic as many seem to think. [/quote]

Actually, cutting taxes has correlated with increased revenues, not all the time, but a lot of the time. The reason is that reducing taxes on individual transactions enables more transactions to take place. It’s the difference between trying to maximize profit on the sale of a single car vs. selling more cars on a more modest profit margin. It’s why a company like Honda or Toyota make way more money than a company like Ferrari or Aston Martin. Ferrari makes more per car, but Honda sells a lot more cars.
This is where the disconnect exists in the tax increase vs. tax decrease philosophy.
If you have a tiny country with a few people in it, you need high taxes to keep that country competitive economically. In a larger population, that’s more diverse, you need to keep the money moving and the way to keep money moving is to keep things affordable. Taxing people out of the ability to spend may increase the per transaction intake, but decreases the amount of transactions that can happen. Because my taxes have gone up this year, to the tune of about 20% compared to last year, I am actually taking in less money even though I supposedly make more. That, needless to say, has reduced my purchasing ability and I have to spend less to stay afloat. Which means That I am putting less money into the economy because more is being taken out at one time. Because taxes have increase, I cannot participate in the economy as much…Poor me. Now multiply the same problem I am having by 100 million and you have a significant impact on the economy. [/quote]

Very well said Pat.

Lefties don’t seem to understand that it is better to increase the tax base (more people paying taxes) than to increase personal income taxes. Of course some of that is the class warfare game that they continue to play to pump up their constituency. Your explanation is one of the best that I’ve seen in a long time.
[/quote]

Thanks :slight_smile:
I think this idea gets lost in the conversation to frequently. To the left, they think we want less taxes because we want the government smaller and poorer, which is not true. We want the government to have plenty of money because we want a big ass military and plenty left for the government to run. Myself, I would double size of the military, just in case.
Anyway, for us conservatives, we can see it plain as day. It’s the most logical thing in the world, low taxes help everybody have more money, including the government. The left cannot see how taxes stifle the economy. They cannot see how raising minimum wage just causes inflation and the bottom is still the bottom, it’s just called something different and everybody’s money is worth less.
Everybody talks about Clinton…Clinton got lucky as hell. He had the tech bubble, when he raised taxes. It was artificial just like the real estate bubble of the 2000’s and burst when he left office.

68

[quote]ZEB wrote:

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
Did anyone else catch the full Jeb interview by Megyn Kelly last night? [/quote]

I missed it, hit me with a few highlights.[/quote]

He’s in favor of education reform, but at the state level. He was pretty adamant the fed should be out of education. He cited his success in Florida (which I haven’t looked into) and compared it to Baltimore’s poor success rate (even though Baltimore spends more per child).

He said he’d look to his brother for advice on the Middle East especially Israel and defended George W’s invasion of Iraq based on the intelligence we had at the time (also claimed Hillary would of invade too as well as everyone else basically).

He pointed out that only two nations have more respect for America under President Obama, Iran and Cuba…

He’s for illegals getting in-state tuition for college and his reasoning was basically that kids shouldn’t pay for the sins of their parents / we shouldn’t marginalize a segment of the population because their parents broke the law. Kelly pressed him on the issue saying this would incentives illegal immigration. His response is to reform immigration to make legal immigration a better option than illegal immigration to combat the problem. I’m probably not doing it justice, but I thought it was a pretty good answer.

He spent a good portion of the interview pointing out he has real leadership experience where most of the other candidates do not.

Overall I thought he came off very well. He was very candid and down to earth (even joked about his mom) and he seemed more comfortable than W. ever did.

I don’t know a lot about Jeb, but I’ll look at him more closely now.

69

Here’s a recap:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/05/12/take-chill-pill-jeb-bush-dismisses-dip-in-polls-defends-immigration-stance/

70

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
He said he’d look to his brother for advice on the Middle East especially Israel and defended George W’s invasion of Iraq based on the intelligence we had at the time (also claimed Hillary would of invade too as well as everyone else basically).
[/quote]

I was going to both give money to and vote for Bush if he chose to handle this the other way. Now I’m going to do neither.

71

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
He said he’d look to his brother for advice on the Middle East especially Israel and defended George W’s invasion of Iraq based on the intelligence we had at the time (also claimed Hillary would of invade too as well as everyone else basically).
[/quote]

I was going to both give money to and vote for Bush if he chose to handle this the other way. Now I’m going to do neither.[/quote]

You should listen to the question he was asked and his response. I don’t think the above paragraph does it justice.

He went on to say that we were wrong, George W. was wrong, and George W. knows that he was wrong based on what we know now.

I believe he was talking as if it was 2002-2003 and he only had access to the information available then. That’s how I took it anyway.

He also specifically point out his brother would advise him, which I personally think is smart, but that George W. would only be 1 of many advisers.

Edit:

The video covers the question and answer:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/05/10/exclusive-jeb-bush-says-hillary-clinton-would-have-backed-iraq-invasion/

72

I caught a portion of the interview, Jeb comes off well spoken and confident about his positions. He made it clear that he makes no apology for where he stands on issues, and intends on not being someone who flip flops.

I agree with SMH that he should have made a better effort to distance himself from his brother, he is already viewed at with guilt by association by his last name.

73

[quote]MaximusB wrote:
I agree with SMH that he should have made a better effort to distance himself from his brother, he is already viewed at with guilt by association by his last name. [/quote]

I disagree, but I get the sentiment.

74

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
He said he’d look to his brother for advice on the Middle East especially Israel and defended George W’s invasion of Iraq based on the intelligence we had at the time (also claimed Hillary would of invade too as well as everyone else basically).
[/quote]

I was going to both give money to and vote for Bush if he chose to handle this the other way. Now I’m going to do neither.[/quote]

You should listen to the question he was asked and his response. I don’t think the above paragraph does it justice.

He went on to say that we were wrong, George W. was wrong, and George W. knows that he was wrong based on what we know now.

I believe he was talking as if it was 2002-2003 and he only had access to the information available then. That’s how I took it anyway.

He also specifically point out his brother would advise him, which I personally think is smart, but that George W. would only be 1 of many advisers.

Edit:

The video covers the question and answer:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/05/10/exclusive-jeb-bush-says-hillary-clinton-would-have-backed-iraq-invasion/
[/quote]

I suppose there’s room for interpretation re: his precise meaning. The question included the phrase “knowing what we know now,” but he seemed to answer vis-a-vis knowing what was known then. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt there.

But that doesn’t help him much in my view. He’s painting a plainly false picture of the run-up to the war. “The intelligence that everybody saw…was faulty.” Anybody who has followed the relevant news knows that the Bush White House went far out of its way to twist and misrepresent the raw intelligence. Jeb mentions other countries, but, in reality, the Iraq reports are filled with example after example after example of other intelligence agencies telling our guys that their case for war was bullshit. One enormous example off the top of my head: the Germans told us that Curveball was crazy and full of shit and just looking for immigration papers. And yet…

For these reasons, in my view, G.W. doesn’t belong anywhere near an advisory position on the Middle East, and nobody who obfuscates what he did belongs anywhere near high office.

Really, I’m just disappointed. I like him, and – though I knew it wasn’t going to happen – he could have taken the difficult and high road. He could have said that he loves his brother as a person, but he considers OIF to have been an enormous failure from conception to execution. I’d have hit the pavement for him. I’d have handed out flyers.

75

[quote]MaximusB wrote:
I agree with SMH that he should have made a better effort to distance himself from his brother, he is already viewed at with guilt by association by his last name. [/quote]

This, too. My personal disappointment aside, the politically savvy move would have been to at least keep distance, given public opinion (and the simple factual record) about W. Bush’s foreign adventures.

76

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]MaximusB wrote:
I agree with SMH that he should have made a better effort to distance himself from his brother, he is already viewed at with guilt by association by his last name. [/quote]

This, too. My personal disappointment aside, the politically savvy move would have been to at least keep distance, given public opinion (and the simple factual record) about W. Bush’s foreign adventures.[/quote]

He’s a politician, and base polling likely shows that after Obama, Bush doesn’t look as bad a before Obama.

77

^^ BTW, I’m not trying to bait you into a fight, USMC. I’ve done the Iraq thing here before, many times, and I’m certainly not going to tell you that I know how you should vote. Just voicing my disappointment.

78

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]MaximusB wrote:
I agree with SMH that he should have made a better effort to distance himself from his brother, he is already viewed at with guilt by association by his last name. [/quote]

This, too. My personal disappointment aside, the politically savvy move would have been to at least keep distance, given public opinion (and the simple factual record) about W. Bush’s foreign adventures.[/quote]

He’s a politician, and base polling likely shows that after Obama, Bush doesn’t look as bad a before Obama. [/quote]

If this is true, they must be making the same mistakes Romney did. Obama’s numbers are up, and they may end up being a plus for Hillary if the economy is not set back before 2016.

Either way, I don’t see any benefit at all to coming out as close with G.W.B. specifically on OIF, which was – factually, objectively – the biggest mistake W. made.

79

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
He said he’d look to his brother for advice on the Middle East especially Israel and defended George W’s invasion of Iraq based on the intelligence we had at the time (also claimed Hillary would of invade too as well as everyone else basically).
[/quote]

I was going to both give money to and vote for Bush if he chose to handle this the other way. Now I’m going to do neither.[/quote]

You should listen to the question he was asked and his response. I don’t think the above paragraph does it justice.

He went on to say that we were wrong, George W. was wrong, and George W. knows that he was wrong based on what we know now.

I believe he was talking as if it was 2002-2003 and he only had access to the information available then. That’s how I took it anyway.

He also specifically point out his brother would advise him, which I personally think is smart, but that George W. would only be 1 of many advisers.

Edit:

The video covers the question and answer:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/05/10/exclusive-jeb-bush-says-hillary-clinton-would-have-backed-iraq-invasion/
[/quote]

I suppose there’s room for interpretation re: his precise meaning. The question included the phrase “knowing what we know now,” but he seemed to answer vis-a-vis knowing what was known then. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt there.

But that doesn’t help him much in my view. He’s painting a plainly false picture of the run-up to the war. “The intelligence that everybody saw…was faulty.” Anybody who has followed the relevant news knows that the Bush White House went far out of its way to twist and misrepresent the raw intelligence. Jeb mentions other countries, but, in reality, the Iraq reports are filled with example after example after example of other intelligence agencies telling our guys that their case for war was bullshit. One enormous example off the top of my head: the Germans told us that Curveball was crazy and full of shit and just looking for immigration papers. And yet…

For these reasons, in my view, G.W. doesn’t belong anywhere near an advisory position on the Middle East, and nobody who obfuscates what he did belongs anywhere near high office.

Really, I’m just disappointed. I like him, and – though I knew it wasn’t going to happen – he could have taken the difficult and high road. He could have said that he loves his brother as a person, but he considers OIF to have been an enormous failure from conception to execution. I’d have hit the pavement for him. I’d have handed out flyers.

[/quote]

I get the above; although, I thought British intelligence was worse than ours iirc, but Jeb is already taking heat from all over the place and he hasn’t even announced his candidacy. He seems to be standing firm on common core and immigration both of which puts him at odds with the conservative base of the Republican Party. It sounds like (correct me if I’m wrong) you want him to essentially throw his brother under the bus, putting him at odds with his family too, at a time when the war in Iraq is over. That I don’t understand. GW isn’t going to advise him on ISIS, he’s not in the know. For all his failings GW knows a thing or two about the Middle East as it consumed his entire presidency and any advice he offers will be as a brother and former president. He isn’t going to be a cabinet member, could you imagine?

Anyway, iirc he had a good relationship with Israel, which is something the new president will have to re-build.

Thoughts?

80

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]MaximusB wrote:
I agree with SMH that he should have made a better effort to distance himself from his brother, he is already viewed at with guilt by association by his last name. [/quote]

This, too. My personal disappointment aside, the politically savvy move would have been to at least keep distance, given public opinion (and the simple factual record) about W. Bush’s foreign adventures.[/quote]

I feel the opposite. If he agrees with his brother, but is willing to throw him (or his father for that matter) under the bus for political gain then I’d have less respect for him and would probably not vote for him if he’s the Republican candidate.

Many would feel the same.

Anyway, I’m not necessarily a Jeb support. I just found the interview interesting.