whats your vote?

[damnitsfrancis]

so wheres all of your standpoints on the comming election. are you going to vote bush, kerry or whatever? me personally i dont want to vote for bush, but kerry doesnt seem so great to me either. so lets hear it!

[Shaggy]

I think Kerry won't be a good pres...so I'm voting Bush. I think he did a decent job as pres these last 4 years. I would like to see him in office another 4. ;)

[damnitsfrancis]

man bush totally sucked! just one thing i can name which bush did a horrible job in. iraq, just from that was so much. and there are a bunch of other reasons, and yeah i agree with you about kerry too, im not too crazy about him either

[AusTexRex]

You live in NYC franics, you've never heard anything but Bush horror stories and look bush is holding a book upside bullshit. I've lived in Boston and Austin, and been in San Diego for a fair amount of time. After reviewing as much available information about them both, I'm going to again vote Bush. Gore was a compulsive liar, if he were making a speech in china town he'd be bhuddist then go to san diego and be catholic, it is a damn good thing he wasn't president through all of the turbulent times we've had. Bush on the other hand while seeming like a dolt, has managed to come up with some of the most astounding economic theories that I have ever seen. Sure he partied in college and did coke and all that shit but think about your parents. They probably did and look how they turned out now.
Kerry, well well, yes he's an american hero, he did what his country called for in time of war, and after getting partially wounded 3 times levied to get himself sent home. No shit, anyone in their right mind would in vietnam. BUT I've lived in Boston long enough to know that Kerry changes his mind every other day about his political stances, and that he is a pretty shady person.
Bush for 2004, trust me, liberal media just tries to make him look like he's mentally handicapped because their pissed their friends aren't in office.

[damnitsfrancis]

the economic theories bush came up with are horrible, the country is in debt now when we started with over a 5trillion was it? i 4get if its billion or trillion, bah whatever it was a lot and now we are in a deficit, i think our money supply dropped 11 trillion with bush's plans and spending. you cant blame the war in iraq though because the money didnt come from there but for all the other spending bush has done plus his tax cuts only bring the nation into more debt. didnt bush promise not to touch the 2.5 or 2.4 (again im forgetting my figures but it was a lot im sure of that) for the SS fund that clinton had set up? but within the first year of bush being in office he spent that money. sure his tax cuts look great for the average joe, but if u do the math who is really earning the big end of the cut? just about the top 20% of the richest people in our nation are keeping just about 50 or 60% of thier taxes now instead of paying it while the rest of us the 80% left have only a little left to divide for the rest of the americans. bush is helping the rich get richer and the poor stay poor. also what about the death tax, i 4get the technical name for it, but thats just the laymans term for it. bush took away that tax saying poor american farmers who will inherit the land once thier parent dies or whatever will have to pay such a large tax that they might have to end up selling the farm to pay off the tax, he said this also applies to small business owners too but yet that has never happened. there is always some way around that if you cannot pay that tax because of financial situation, and in most cases if u are poor enough you dont even have to pay it at all. but remember this also applies to big business' too, so lets say the son or daughter of some multi-billion dollar company that is ridiculously rich, such as bush too had to pay this tax which could mean millions or billions of dollars for them to pay when they inherit the business. since bush took away this tax that took away money which was ment for the gov and the people of america and the money was kept in the pockets of the rich while the less big business owners and farmers taught they were saving too, but actually that tax would rarely affect them in the first place. dont forget about bush taking away taxes from shareholders too i could get more into that but im lazy to explain how, and also companies with an offshore mailbox such as enron for a good example wouldnt have to pay billions in taxes because bush also had millions saved from paying in taxes with the same method. another bad thing about bush is that more americans now do not have jobs, there is a lower unemployment rate than there was durring the great depression. more and more americans now do not have healthcare coverage and most americans coverage is getting so expensive they can barely afford it, or have to cut the coverage because of that. what happened to improving the education system in the united states? hell in new york you will notice big differences between the schools in highclass neighborhoods with a low poplulation and a bigger building than the schools in the ghettos with a larger population, over-crowding, smaller buildings and underfunding. how can a public school in a highclass area afford paying for all new computers, new equipment and books while all the schools in the poor areas stay poor and are getting worse year by year, and dont tell me no because i been in public school and my parents work in differnt schools too. schools get funded by the ammount of students they have for what they need. so obviously to put it simply a school with more students should get more money than a school with a lesser ammount of students. i really think bush did horrible, just the economy the way it is now is doing bad, i dont know about your family's but if you come from a poor family like my family it just gets harder and harder to afford everyday life now.

[Hollywood]

I just dont understand how you can go to war and cut taxes at the same time.
where dose the money come from to pay for the war?
concervatives are just no good at fighting wars

[2ROTORMOTOR]

conservatives are, but I doubt bush is a conservative....Liberals wouldnt do half the shit this asshole does..

[Shaggy]

OK...you guys haven't answered fransics question...are you voting Bush or Kerry??

[AusTexRex]

I just dont understand how you can go to war and cut taxes at the same time.
where dose the money come from to pay for the war?
concervatives are just no good at fighting wars

Well the tax cuts aren't intended to give people more money. They are intended to give people more money so they can spend it on other businesses which have to pay income taxes and their employees get more money which the government earns back in sales taxes as well as when the employee spends the money on a business which then pays the government more income tax. Basically, but cutting taxes at the right percentage, at the right time, the government earns a whole lot more money. Plus this war has made oil cost more, and is procuring a lot of trade deals for the U.S. so in fact the conversatives that "don't know how to fight wars" are making shit loads of money off of this war.

[Shaggy]

Thats a good way of looking at it.. ;)

[damnitsfrancis]

the money the gov gets from taxes pays for a lot. the taxcuts that the rich get they just pocket the money, how can you say it should improve economy when now look whats happening. people who have jobs now work for much less and longer hours, because they do not want to loose thier job, i think, im not sure of the figures again but we work just about 200 more hours than the average european and we still earn less. the war actually is costing the nation way less than the tax cuts too. i remember reading from the bipartisan congressinal budget office that the taxcuts costs the nation 3times more than the war in iraq, and thats including homeland security and rebuilding after sept 11. just to hear that the bush administration probly knew about the possible terrorist attack and let it happen effects me personally since i live in NYC. i knew some families that had thier loved ones die, and i had a friend who was lucky enough to wake up late that awful morning and didnt come into his interview on time, just missing the attack. dont even get me started with the patriot act, its more like the oh if u are anti war and against our ideals u are a terrorist act. i remember durring the war when people who was against the war since day one were hated against just for thier opinion. this doesnt sound like a free nation to me anymore

[Shaggy]

Damn francis...you are writing books here.. :lol:

[damnitsfrancis]

haha, i read a lot when im bored. u kno riding trains to school, doing work, defeating evil, ect... hahaha

[AusTexRex]

Much of your concerns are good points or things to be worried about, but they have very little to do with Bush himself.
-What people do to people protesting the war is not the fault of the president.
-The dip in the economy was starting at the end of Clinton's 2nd term, right now we have just passed the apex of a bear market, assuming that people maintain confidence in the economic system it will come back up over the next 3 years, whether or not Bush is the next president.
-When it comes to the national economy the president has very little direct control over it. A president can only manipulate taxes and the federal budget. It's sort of like trying to make something float in a different direction by pushing waves at it.
-Had Enron never happened in the first place we wouldn't have started an economic decline. Why Enron happened is a complicated matter including a lot of people in the IRS and if someone wanted to assign presidential blame it would be Clintcn (although he was a decent president by many standards).
-This government let 9/11 happen hasn't ever been proved and I haven't seen enough evidence to believe it myself. AND even if it did happen it had nothing to do with Bush, he hadn't been in office that long, everything that happens in the government isn't the president's fault.
-School systems weren't improved, but literally every single candidate for president over the last 2 decades has said he would improve the educational standards, and noone ever has. Anything a president claims he can do during his term is bogus, he has to write bills and watch them go through congress just the same as anyone else.

On many of your concerns it boils down to congress. How many people in congress benefit from this war? Tons, most of them have stock in oil. Take a look at the public tax records of many members of congress, particularly the senate, they are very.... interesting. Bush paid nearly 50% of his annual income in taxes this last year, Cheney made 2x as much and paid nearly the same amount.

On a side note:
Out of all members in the government Cheney is the one who should be watched and blamed, didn't Haliburton just get exposed for illegal tax practices? Wasn't Cheney an executive of Haliburton before this? Isn't Haliburton related to oil?

[damnitsfrancis]

bush started the war, it was his fault. esp for taking unrealiable intelligence, he he probly knew was true, or he could be lying about the intelligence and justifying the war that saddam has weapons of mass destruction. and with the economy, taxes pay for revinue or however u spell it, with all the taxcuts the governtment will be in bad shape. i need to read up again for more examples but im a bit busy now since school and all. but here are some points i have

-Brought the country into one of the worst recessions in recent years
-Completely alienated all relations to foreign nations
-Invaded a country on false premises
-Invaded and made a regime change in a country, then left, and now the country is falling apart again
-Knew about possible 9/11 terrorist attacks, yet did nothing
-His administration condoned the torture of Iraqi prisoners then when revealed, alienated the soldiers caught carrying out their orders
-Invasion into Iraq killed over 15000 iraqis
-Planned to build NEW nuclear weapons
-His entire information on weapons of mass destruction was from a few exiled Iraqis whose info turned out to be false
-"You're with us, or you're against us" idealization the most retarded thing a world leader has ever said
-Uses falsified propaganda to link Saddam to Al Qaeda
-Quoted during his campaign in 2000 "Our job as a nation is not to go around the world telling people what to do"
-Expresses everlasting gratitude to war veterans, then cuts their funding
-Bush told people at a food bank that we must do some good, then cut funding for the meals on wheels program
Bush closes women's offices in federal agencies and defunds programs
-Bush's tax cuts cut taxes for the rich only
-Bush appoints racially hostile Republicans to key civil rights positions
-Singlehandedly with the Patriot Act condemns all protestors as terrorists
-Weakened HIV prevention programs
-Opposes condoms even to teenagers
-Bush apparently believes he was elected national preacher as well as president (just my opinion :-p)

[AusTexRex]

bush started the war, it was his fault. esp for taking unrealiable intelligence, he he probly knew was true, or he could be lying about the intelligence and justifying the war that saddam has weapons of mass destruction. and with the economy, taxes pay for revinue or however u spell it, with all the taxcuts the governtment will be in bad shape. i need to read up again for more examples but im a bit busy now since school and all. but here are some points i have

-Brought the country into one of the worst recessions in recent years
-Completely alienated all relations to foreign nations
-Invaded a country on false premises
-Invaded and made a regime change in a country, then left, and now the country is falling apart again
-Knew about possible 9/11 terrorist attacks, yet did nothing
-His administration condoned the torture of Iraqi prisoners then when revealed, alienated the soldiers caught carrying out their orders
-Invasion into Iraq killed over 15000 iraqis
-Planned to build NEW nuclear weapons
-His entire information on weapons of mass destruction was from a few exiled Iraqis whose info turned out to be false
-"You're with us, or you're against us" idealization the most retarded thing a world leader has ever said
-Uses falsified propaganda to link Saddam to Al Qaeda
-Quoted during his campaign in 2000 "Our job as a nation is not to go around the world telling people what to do"
-Expresses everlasting gratitude to war veterans, then cuts their funding
-Bush told people at a food bank that we must do some good, then cut funding for the meals on wheels program
Bush closes women's offices in federal agencies and defunds programs
-Bush's tax cuts cut taxes for the rich only
-Bush appoints racially hostile Republicans to key civil rights positions
-Singlehandedly with the Patriot Act condemns all protestors as terrorists
-Weakened HIV prevention programs
-Opposes condoms even to teenagers
-Bush apparently believes he was elected national preacher as well as president (just my opinion :-p)

Bush did not start this war, he certainly was for the war, but he did not start it all by himself. It takes an act of congress to declare war.
WMD's, Biological weapons, nuclear weapons, whatever, doesn't matter Saddam killed thousands. A family friend of ours, a pastor , went to Iraq a few months ago to provide health and other volunteer services. He stayed in a hospital right next to a large parking lot. One the second to last day he was there the military was excavating that parking lot, under the concrete were buses side by side lined up 3 rows deep and 10 buses per row. Inside each bus were civilians packed inside and buried alive. Weapons, whatever, fuck it, the US put Saddam into power we made a mistake, it was the US's job to take him out of power.
Economic recession began due to a number of illegal tax evasions that when exposed were placed upon the government to fill By cutting program funding and cutting taxes Bush allows the people of America to keep more money, which promotes the spending of that extra money. For ever dollar that has been cut, that someone receives and spends the government makes back two. Double taxation, it's how the government was supposed to stay out of debt, but the programs for our well being, and wars have put us into debt.
An economic recession such as this one does not start over night, and it does not start because of one man, or even the president and congress (whom have to approve the president's budget) it is our fault as the people of the United States. When we have the least money is when ecnomically overall we need to spend it. Noone understands that, which is why the great depression happened. I digress, the points you have made again are either acts of congress or are not even the fault of this administration.

[damnitsfrancis]

its congress' fault too, but there was no declaration of war. last time congress actually declared war was WWII. congress only simply let bush take command of the troops as he saw fit.

bush jr is following in his fathers footsteps for taxcuts like his father did and back when bush sr was in office gov surplus was going down. when clintion went into office he reversed every taxcut and economic plan bush sr made and america was makin money. we set a new record and made the most money ever with bill. then when bush jr was elected he copied his fathers ideas and look what happened. if bush jr would had followed bill's plans there was a projected surplus of 11billion in about 10 years. now the projected deficit in less than 10 years is over 11billion, or just about. the millions and billions that the top 20% pay in taxes are most of the money the gov needs for its programs and whatnot. i dont know if i mentioned it earlier but the taxcuts cost the gov more than 3times the money we are using for iraq and thats including rebuilding and homeland security. i 4get how much bush asked for when he wanted to go into iraq and i 4get how much was needed for rebuilding and homeland security but i remember it was a lot, and if the taxcuts cost the gov 3 times more than all those put together that shows how much money is being lost. btw i got the info from bipartisan congressional budget office.

[Hollywood]

what do you mean concervatives are making more money?
we are spending 100s of billion dollars fighting this war, and at the same time the GOP wants more tax cuts. (well it is an election year, these guys will say anything to get elected.) yet at the same time many of americas large businesses and corportations are moviving "off shore" to avoid paying taxes. that is where most of our tax revenue comes from, and the concervatives do not want to stop them.

[AusTexRex]

I mean that due to this war oil companies are banking hard, and we are procuring a lot of business from the middle east. Oil companies make money, spend it, and everyone makes money. Unfortunately we're in the middle of the part where we're giving the oil companies more money than usual and they aren't spending more than usual. Banks and oil companies make this economy work the way it does.

[damnitsfrancis]

well it doesnt seem like its working right. bush is following the same econmical plan his father did and the economy was going down during the bush sr adminitstation, when clinton came into office he reversed everything that bush sr did and the economy went up and prospered like never before seen. when bush jr came into office he followed the same economic plan his father set up and look whats happening again. except this time its even worse off than be4 because now we are in debt

[Hollywood]

that oil is not going to american oil companies though. the worlds largest oil companies are in Asia, they are the ones getting the oil

[AusTexRex]

oil hasn't become harder to pull from the earth for american oil companies, yet their prices have raised substantially. And yes the crude oil isn't going straight to american oil companies, but we are taking money for oil from Iraq when we are selling it to Asia.

[Hollywood]

all the oil money that comes from iraqs oil, goes to Iraq. thanks to the UN

[AusTexRex]

Direct money for the crude itself, but whos shipping it, whos processing it, whos buying it in the US, and selling it to us in the US? People are being paid all along the lines from this. Regardless oil companies are making more because their product is in lower supply and the same demand, congress members hold oil stocks, corruption? Who knows, I don't particularly care about any of it simply because there is nothing I can do about it.
The president takes blame for everything, when in fact presidents don't really do much more than be a political symbol and somewhat set up a national budget (advisors and congress do most of it, president basically comes up with a rough draft).
Problems with the economy are more the fault of a nation as a whole including big businesses and us ourselves, than it is the governments. The govt. gets there money from us when we spend money, or receive money. When we spend money we are taxed, and then that same money is taxed again when someone else receives it. Then when they spend it and yatta yatta yatta. Whether or not the government has enough money to do what they want is dependent upon the government's budget, and how much we as a nation are receiving and spending. Technically if noone saved most of their money and spent it on things they wanted only saving a little for emergencies or unforseen expenses we'd be a financially stable nation, BUT since there will always be people who can't do that, and millions who wouldn't want to trust other people with our finances (I'm one of them) our free market capitalist economy will never be perfect. Instead it fluctuates in times of war and in times of particularly bad business. If Europe has a bad business year, then so will we, unless of course we are the reason Europe had a bad business year. It's complicated yes, impossible to understand every aspect of it, yes. The government can try and balance out our mistakes and fill in the gaps where our economy is failing, but they need our money to do so.
Sure the government would be readily available to do this if we were in a overall budget surplus (not just annual surplus) but we're not, and we haven't been for decades. What the Bush family does is exactly what FDR did during TGD. Deficit spending. Spending money on certain goals, and cutting taxes. FDR spent it on farms and crops, Bush spend it on war.
If you look at the U.S. market analysis during and after times of war they will be identical to the exact curve we are at now, except a a less steep curve (WWII would be as deep, but in less time since they didn't spend 150mil on a missle every 10 minutes). After the war is over the market will raise steadily and will be profitable. Seeing as how this will be when Bush is out of office, he will never get the credit for what he's doing.
Why are we spending so much money a war? To keep people from dying. Our people that is, can you put a price on a person's life? The government does every time they send a 100+ million dollar smart bomb at a target. It's unavoidable and it's preferable to our friends and families dying.
This has probably been all over the place, from topic to topic, but if I didn't skip around and I elaborated on every point to it's absolute fullest I would be writing more than 10 pages on every single point. Everything is really just that deep and that complicated.

[Shaggy]

Damn guys..can't we talk about somethng else now....you guys are wasting all of your finger power here on this thread..when you should be using it some where else on the forum ..:lol:

[AusTexRex]

http://money.cnn.com/
Bush isn't out of office and the economy is coming back so hard Greenspan is talking about raising interest to prevent inflation.