"Actually, the biggest spending Bush did was the tax cuts."

That doesn't make sense at all. Tax cuts =/= spending.

Ok, the greatest increase in the budget deficit was caused by Bush's tax cuts.

As Ben Franklin said, 'A penny saved is a penny earning.' Same goes for tax cuts. A tax not collected is a tax not earned. I can't fault Tantris's logic here.

earning = earned. I ought to start reading what I typed.

lmao, let's just tax everything then. 100% income tax. And sine the government is so much better then the privatized sector, we can have them make all of our decisions for us. ;-) There are reasons that socialism hasn't worked in the past, and won't work in a long term situation, as long as people have free will.

Tax cuts don't work though if you don't cut spending as well.

And Hunter49r goes full out! We are obviously talking about a tax that is so unreasonable, that the top 400 earners in the country pay an amazing 16% in federal income taxes!! Holy crap! Full out socialism! Which has never worked, especially not on the minuscule scale we are talking about. I mean, England, France, Canada, Japan, Germany are all much further into socialism than we have ever considered, and they are all failed states. Oh wait, they aren't failed states. So, does that mean it works?

We are talking about what Bush did to affect the budget and how we ended up in this huge budget deficit. Perhaps you should temper your craziness towards that area...

You could also attempt to stay away from using "reductio ad absurdum". No one even argued in favor of taxes, we just said that the Bush tax cuts really increased the budget deficit.

There was nothing wrong with the tax cuts, it just should have been matched with equal spending cuts.

Oh, and given the amount of money we spend on military and the fact we don't have 50%+ taxes for everyone means we cannot afford the sort of system seen in the countries you listed.

heh, I was addressing Dingle more then you with that last post. And yes, I may have exaggerated just a bit. :) A mix of Socialism/Capitalism can work, and European countries are a great example. But America has always been based off of 'We the people' and free market, so it upsets me when we begin to move away from that.

Did Bush's tax cuts increase the deficit? I'm sure the argument could be made for both sides, but I would say no. First off, I am not a bush apologist or anything like that, my argument would apply to Obama as well, since I believe that he cut some taxes too.

Putting it into an everyday example; I would argue that decreasing your income doesn't increase your debt. It is only when you continue to live the same life-style as before your demotion that your debt piles up. When Bush made the tax cuts, the logical thing to do would have been to cut spending, but instead spending increased. The main cause of these increases would be the wars over in Iraq and Afghanistan. And not getting into whether or not these wars are warranted, they were poorly planned in regards to how much money we were making versus how much we were spending.

I'm strongly against deficit spending, but Bush had to keep the economy healthy and defend America. So, he had to both cut taxes and go to war. If he didn't cut taxes, people would say he betrayed his conservative ideology. If he didn't go to war, people would call him a ball-less defeatist.

How would less income not increase the defecit?

The tax cuts happened before 9/11, so it was a pretty difficult situation. Plus neither Iraq nor Afghanistan were originally planned to be the nation building boondoggles they've become, so there was probably even less of a plan to pay for Iraq than there was to prevent looting.

A real conservative ideology isn't blind adherence to tax cuts. It's fiscal responsibility, something the Republicans seem to have lacked for a decade.

Wow, Hunter, yeah, you put me in my place. Your suggestion of 100% income tax makes my previous posts pure folly. Get real! If you cut taxes and don't cut spending, you have a deficit. Blame it on whichever side of the balance sheet makes you feel better, but it is irresponsible for anyone making a budget to cut assets without a similar cut in debits.

The hilarious thing about Bush and "nation building" was how much he made an issue out of that during the 2000 campaign, how that wasn't the job of the military.

And then we go into Iraq. I'm much more in favor of the Afgan war, if we had done that properly instead of getting involved in Iraq, we'd have that problem solved. Afganistan had Osama. We need to get that motherfucker. But Saddam was just one more third-rate dictator. There are a lot of those, and we don't have the time and resources to deal with that.

@ Dingle- :D I try my best. But "A tax not collected is a tax not earned" sounds a lot like something you would say if you were advocating for more taxes. I already said that I was a bit over-dramatic if that is the response you were looking for.

"It is irresponsible for anyone making a budget to cut assets without a similar cut in debits." I agree with you here.

So then what was it you were objecting to on the first place?

I'll admit that the Iraq War should have been a month-long shock-and-awe. Not a nearly decade-long nation-build. Just get Saddam and hit the reset button for the country. Anarchy is preferable to Saddam. Just ask any Kurd.

I was objecting just for objections sake. ;)
No, my initial problem was with this, "Actually, the biggest spending Bush did was the tax cuts." My argument was that tax cuts are not spending. And then it became something along the lines of tax cuts don't cause a deficit. I would argue that deficits can only be caused by spending, and a surplus is only caused by taxation. Do you see what I mean? It's clear in my head, but I am fumbling for a good way to show you what I mean.


@TMW- Without looking it up, can you tell me why it was so important for us to get rid of Saddam in the first place?

The US was defending the Kurds before the war. What Saddam was actually doing was keeping Iran in check. Sadly, we didn't listen to the experts on the middle east before we took action.

Hunter,
"I would argue that deficits can only be caused by spending, and a surplus is only caused by taxation."

If you want to use dictionary definitions perhaps. But if you want to use real world examples, if you cut your income without cutting your spending, the cut in income is causing the hole in your budget.

Because he was a genocidal tyrant who was developing WMDs.

@TMW - please tell me where those WMDs were? That was the bill of goods we and congress were sold on, but they were never delivered. I want my tax dollars back as I paid for WMDs in Iraq and never got any.

meh, I know that they found some older chemical weapons, but that isn't even the point.
Iran likely has WMD's and their leader is crazier then Saddam was. Should we 'liberate' them as well? What about South Korea?

*North Korea

If we were to liberate South Korea, we would have to fight a lot of our own troops ;)

I am and always was against the invasion of Iraq - from the get-go; however, the fact is Hussein was trying to make it seem like he had nuclear weapons. Every time any inspectors came to make sure things were A-OK, he would act suspicious and shuffle around personnel and materiel to make it seem like he was doing something he wasn't supposed to be doing.

I was against the war in Iraq 100% and I figured they probably had nuclear weapons based on the information I'd seen in media. My main source of news at the time was the Economist, so it's not like I got that information from conservative American media (unfortunately I'm no longer a subscriber because I'm poor, lol).

Economist actually is "conservative" American media (in the same way that NPR is "liberal". :)

@Hibiskiss

I was trying to point out I'm not the Foxnews type, since I figured the first reaction from Americans in this thread would be "Republican ideologue!"

lol, I get most of my information from online sources, as I don't watch much T.V.
Is Fox really that bad compared to other shows?

@Hunter49r

It and MSNBC are both pretty obvious about which party they're rooting for.

We have to remember news media is entertainment first and foremost - it's a business that makes money based on viewership; therefore, a network says the sort of things its viewers want to hear. That's way Fox is solidly right, MSNBC is solidly left and CNN is left of center - that's what their viewers want.

I tend to go back and forth between CNN and Fox I figure if I watch both of those networks and average what they're saying I have the best case of getting an idea of what's really going on.