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Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin
When it comes to taxes, one group wants the wealthiest Americans to pay 38% in federal taxes while the other group wants them to pay 35%. Sure there is a difference, but it's not that huge of a difference. If you were telling someone from another country what the difference is between the mainstream Dems and the mainstream Repubs when it comes to taxes, I think they would be surprised how similar the two parties are.
I have to disagree with you about your contention that Repubs want to get into people's private lives while the Dems don't. Can you give some examples? Sure there are some Repubs that are against abortion, but that's the only one I can think of, and I'm not sure if most people would call that interfering in people's private lives any more than many of the other laws out there. There are a lot of new anti-smoking laws out there. Some people may argue that these new anti-smoking laws invade our personal lives. The truth of the matter is that most laws have an effect on our personal freedom. That's just reality. If you live in a civilized society, you don't have unlimited freedom. There are tons of laws that restrict your freedom. By the way, I commend the Democrats for championing these anti-smoking laws. If I go to a restaurant for dinner, I don't want to be breathing some guy's smoke from the next table.
I have to disagree with your contention that Bush's foreing policy team was popular but not capable. If you look at the resumes and track records of those people, I don't know how you could argue this. As I said before, Powell was very successful as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs back in the late 1980s. Cheney was very successful as Sec of Defense. Rumsfeld had an impeccable resume, both in the public and private sector. What else do we have to go on besides a person's track record?
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Rupert, Bush and his Republican Congress wanted to slash taxes on capital gains (as it is, they cut them to 15 percent, I believe). The people who benefit most from a cut in capital gains tax are wealthy people who live off investments. The majority of stock in the country is held by a relatively small number of people. Trickle-down economics is a Republican creation (and if you ask me, anyone who has ever worked for gratuities could have told you it was a crock because they tell me the rich tend to be the crummiest tippers). Right now, the rich pay considerably less in taxes as a percentage of their total income that the middle-class due to the cuts in the capital gains tax and assorted other breaks the Republicans have given them. You think that's not a big difference? That 35 vs. 39 percent stat is on earned income from a job, not stocks or other things you don't actually have to do any work for.
The drive to outlaw abortion is in the Republican party plank; it's not a fringe belief of a few members. (Of course, there's no plank pushing for increased availability of daycare or easy access to contraceptives for women). In addition, it's Republicans who have fought against Plan B being available over the counter, and opposed making the HPV vaccine available. "Sodomy" was a crime in Texas (Republican controlled) until just a few years ago, when the Supreme Court struck it down, much to the fury of the dissenting conservative justices on the court. What party do you think they vote? And Terri Schiavo, of course. (You are aware the video tape oft cited was cut together from hours and hours of material, and the sections of Terri staring off blankly while her mom pleaded with her to look at her were not shown to the public?) How abut the one-and-a-half BILLION dollar initiative to pressure single Americans to get married and for married Americans in bad marriages to stay married. You remember that one, don't you? Is that a good start for you?
Oh, and the abstinence-only education in public schools. Withholding factual information is also interfering in private lives.
Look, I'll actually give you that Rumsfeld in a different time and with a different President was decent at his job. But when the people in charge were, even before the invasion, saying pretty blatantly that there was no plan for afterwards because we'd be "greeted as liberators" (right, Cheney. You keep smoking that particular weed), I think it was obvious that they had no clue what they were doing. And a President with any level of competance would have fired them once it was obvious things were going badly. But he preferred a bunch of patsies who would tell him what he wanted to hear and they didn't love their country and their soldiers enough to be honest with him.
Notice how Cheney is trying to distance himself from Iraq now? What's the old saying, success has a thousand fathers, but failure is an orphan? I think he's hopeful America will remember this one as Bush's orphan, and not his.