From: jbuck@forney.berkeley.edu (Joe Buck)
Newsgroups: ba.politics
Subject: Re: Run conservatives, run away! (Was: Re: Homophobics can't...)
Date: 26 Aug 1992 00:45:46 GMT
Organization: U. C. Berkeley
Distribution: ba
NNTP-Posting-Host: forney.berkeley.edu

In article <athos-250892154128@athos.apple.com> athos@apple.com (Rick Eames) writes:
>Well, you're assuming that the government SHOULD do something about
>recessions.  Maybe we should just let the seasons of the economy take their
>natural shape without gov't sticking its hand into it.  I am one who thinks
>along these lines.

This is basically the line of thinking that the Republican party used up
into the 50s.  But Ronald Reagan's most effective line during his campaign
was "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?".  That is, his
whole campaign was based on the idea that it was the responsibility of the
President to have the economy work.  Bush can't run away from this one now.

>> Nope, great leaders manage to get people to do what they want them
>> to do.  I repeat, Ronald Reagan also had to deal with a hostile 
>> Congress and yet he was able to get most of his economic package
>> through the Congress.  Bush hasn't been able to ...

>* Reagan had a Republican Senate for a while there.

This makes no difference.  One house is every bit as good at blocking
legislation as two are; no bill can become law without the House passing
it.

>* Bush raised taxes, yes, but also made a deal that helped the country
>  limit its spending.

No, he didn't; the infamous budget agreement of 1990 did not help the
country limit its spending.  The numbers were phony, which is one of the
reasons the deficit is so high now.  This also shows why a balanced budget
amendment won't work; the politicians will simply predict enormous
economic growth and no catastrophes for the next year, and voila, the
budget will balance.  Budgets are based on predictions about how much
revenues will come in and how many entitlement dollars will need to go
out. 

>Well, when you have to have a balanced budget, when you believe that tax
>increases are "bad" in a state that has high taxes already, when you
>believe that deferring debt is just a tax on the future and when you
>believe that education is not an untouchable thing, you HAVE to do what
>Wilson has done.

Wilson's proposals do plenty of "taxes on the future" -- for example, now
a child is eligible for kindergarten if he or she turns 5 years old by Dec
1 of the year.  Wilson's going to save money by changing the date to Sep
1, which will mean a huge kindergarten class the year after the change
(the 110,000 kids who wait would all go in next year).  Many of his other
proposals are similar.  You've read too much Republican propaganda.

>  He cut a deal last time, and it hurt the state.  If the
>Democrats wanted a budget they'd have voted on it already.

The Democrats (much as I dislike Willie Brown) aren't the villians in this
battle.  They've repeatedly come up with budget proposals and passed them.
They don't have enough votes to override the veto.  Wilson has no moral
right to blackmail the state to get exactly his proposal, without a single
adjustment.  He's not a dictator; the legislature is a co-equal branch of
government. 

>Read the August 24th issue of Newsweek.  They go into this a bit and
>explain what happened with the tax increase: he didn't think it *was* a tax
>increase, but soon realized that it indeed was.

No, he simply ran the same phony numbers game that politicians of both
parties always run: by an incredibly optimistic set of assumptions, he
could delude himself and others into thinking that the adjustments were
revenue-neutral, but it's nonsense: eventually the real numbers come out.




--
Joe Buck	jbuck@ohm.berkeley.edu
Xref: sparky ba.politics:4913 ca.politics:7270