n2nh
12-30-2007, 07:12 AM
A couple of months ago I was talking to a neocon aquiantence that I know reads my posts here (even though he denies this). He asked me who I thought was Conservative. I mentioned Bill Clinton. He was flabbergasted! Flummoxed! After he finished sputtering, he implied that I was waaay off base and so extreme left, that anything would look conservative to me. In a word, he felt I was wrong.
Was I? Or was his views off base? Here is another view that actually supercedes what I said to him.
From a Libertarian assessment done in July, 2002:
Quote[/b] ]<span style='color:red'>President Bush may be repeating the sins of his father. Although elected on a Reaganesque, tax-cutting platform, the White House has veered to the left.
President Bush has signed a bill to regulate political speech, issued protectionist taxes on imported steel and lumber, backed big-spending education and farm bills, and endorsed massive new entitlements for mental health care and prescription drugs. When the numbers are added up, in fact, it looks like President Bush is less conservative than President Clinton.
It makes little sense to discourage one's core supporters prior to a mid-term election. Yet that is the result when a Republican president expands government, which Bush is doing. Also, academic research on voting patterns shows that a president is most likely to get re-elected if voters are enjoying an increase in disposable income. Yet making government bigger is not a recipe for economic growth. After all, there is a reason why Hong Kong grows so fast and France is an economic basket case. But you can't tell that to the Bush administration.
Administration officials privately admit that much of the legislation moving through Congress represents bad public policy. Yet they argue either that everything must take a back seat to the war on terror (much as the first Bush administration treated the war against Iraq) or that compromises are necessary to neutralize issues such as education. But motives and rationalizations do not repeal the laws of economics.
In less than two years, President Bush has presided over more government expansion than took place during eight years of Bill Clinton.</span>
Was Bill Clinton MORE Conservative Than Dubya Is? (http://cato.org/research/articles/derugy-020725.html)
Was I? Or was his views off base? Here is another view that actually supercedes what I said to him.
From a Libertarian assessment done in July, 2002:
Quote[/b] ]<span style='color:red'>President Bush may be repeating the sins of his father. Although elected on a Reaganesque, tax-cutting platform, the White House has veered to the left.
President Bush has signed a bill to regulate political speech, issued protectionist taxes on imported steel and lumber, backed big-spending education and farm bills, and endorsed massive new entitlements for mental health care and prescription drugs. When the numbers are added up, in fact, it looks like President Bush is less conservative than President Clinton.
It makes little sense to discourage one's core supporters prior to a mid-term election. Yet that is the result when a Republican president expands government, which Bush is doing. Also, academic research on voting patterns shows that a president is most likely to get re-elected if voters are enjoying an increase in disposable income. Yet making government bigger is not a recipe for economic growth. After all, there is a reason why Hong Kong grows so fast and France is an economic basket case. But you can't tell that to the Bush administration.
Administration officials privately admit that much of the legislation moving through Congress represents bad public policy. Yet they argue either that everything must take a back seat to the war on terror (much as the first Bush administration treated the war against Iraq) or that compromises are necessary to neutralize issues such as education. But motives and rationalizations do not repeal the laws of economics.
In less than two years, President Bush has presided over more government expansion than took place during eight years of Bill Clinton.</span>
Was Bill Clinton MORE Conservative Than Dubya Is? (http://cato.org/research/articles/derugy-020725.html)