What is there not to like?
I had a conversation with a lobbyist last night about the leadership (or lack thereof) in the House, and he had some interesting observations. “At the start of the session, I thought the divisions from the speaker’s race had really weakened Straus. I kept waiting for the meltdown. It never came. I think the members looked around, saw that they could do anything they wanted to do without the chair’s interference, and they thought, ‘Hey, this isn’t so bad. In fact, it’s pretty good.’ The bottom line: He thinks Straus is in better shape than he’s ever been.
South Texan says:
Yesterday a Democratic House member said that Speaker Straus was doing very well. He seems to be gaining strength from his ability to work well with colleagues, even with those who have opposed him. Clearly, he is enjoying increased respect and enhanced stature in the Texas Legislature. Bravo!
My opinion? We need more leaders like him–cool, calm, affable, likable, intelligent, responsible, respectful, trustworthy, and honest.
Another opinion? He should run for governor.
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Anonymous Reply:
April 30th, 2011 at 3:39 pm
One of the things that makes Straus great is he doesn’t think about higher office (shocking, I know). He is focused on the job at hand. He’s a class act and a fair and balanced leader. Bravo indeed.
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Anonymous Reply:
May 1st, 2011 at 12:34 pm
Yes, unlike Rick Perry who is absolutely running for President as Burka constantly reminds us. I mean all the evidence is there that Perry is running and Burka can unequovically say that Perry aspires to higher office because all the evidence unmistakably proves that this is so.
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Anonymous says:
I concur with South Texan’s assessment. However, I’m trying to figure out to what extent the speaker is advancing the moderate R agenda (besides appointing mostly moderate chairmen). What are your thoughts on that, Mr. Burka?
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Anonymous Reply:
April 30th, 2011 at 11:08 am
Hard to advance a moderate agenda in a rightwing House. Like all politicians, Straus is dealing the cards he was dealt by Texas voters. It’s the public that needs to be educated to vote in its own best interest. Until then…well, the monied interests will continue to wage their psychological warfare in a way that convinces the masses to vote for the welfare of the upper crust.
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Karen Reply:
April 30th, 2011 at 12:26 pm
How do you educate people who have closed their minds to anything but this radical agenda? I’d sure like to hear your suggestions regarding this. If the Bush tax cuts, which have been in place for about 10 years now, created jobs and increased revenue, where are the jobs and why do we have this budget deficits both at the state and federal level? CBO predicted this in a report in 2003-2004 both at the state and federal level. As did Strayhorn regarding the Perry Tax Plan in 2006.
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Anonymous Reply:
April 30th, 2011 at 4:06 pm
Karen
Your forcing banks to make billions in home loans to hopelessly unqualified applicants in the name of affirmative action blew the bottom out of an otherwise good post 9/11 economy. It also caused much human suffering worldwide. Thanks to Perry, Texas added more jobs than most other states combined. Nonetheless, gov’t revenues remain anemic as job creating businesses are afraid of the climate.
Ike's lawyer Reply:
April 30th, 2011 at 8:59 pm
Karen,
The sorts of things you do when you post on this blog are a crucial part of the education process – challenging bare assertions that don’t square with the reality of what has happened and trying to provide context and background info with your hyperlinks are great habits I think. We can’t control what others do and we can’t control whether the national Democratic Party will decide soon to openly and clearly articulate its values (after agreeing on what they are) and develop a well-packaged, plain-spoken, honest, and sustained campaign to win the public over to its viewpoint (at which point not only conservatives but also Eisenhower Republicans such as myself will want clear and sensible answers to questions about costs and effectiveness and fairness to the taxpayers footing the bill and best alternatives). But we can try and keep a cool head and keep punching. Perhaps one day you’ll look around and see that a sizable posse has formed at your back, big enough and influential enough to make a difference.
I have a few ideas of my own. For example, the federal government has a progressive income tax. If one favors raising the top rate to Clinton-era levels one often hears from the right charges of class warfare or hating the rich and the like. One rarely hears an effective defense of the progressive income tax – usually vague and sporadic appeals to fairness and the idea that wealthy people can generally afford the tax.
Now I myself don’t think that going from 36% to 39% on the top rate is crushing or confiscatory. I think that getting the federal fiscal house in order during the nineties was (along with the information technology revolution, the fact that so many baby boomers and Gen Xers worked hard and worked smart during those years, and other things) a crucial part of the mix for the boom economy of those years and that the nineties boom was good for everyone and especially for the wealthy (which was fine with me). And I do think that wealthier people are generally better able to afford to pay a higher rate on an income tax (though let’s take care that it not become confiscatory).
But one idea I never hear is the following, which to me stands to reason. The U.S. Government spends a lot of money keeping the peace in this world and keeping social peace here at home. In my opinion were it not for American foreign and military policy one would see a significant increase in various forms of piracy and other blocks to trade and prosperity that would decrease the amount of wealth in this country and the world. We all benefit from these policies but the wealthier you are, it seems to me, the more you benefit economically from the fruit of these expensive undertakings. (I think a similar point can be made for expensive infrastructure undertakings such as the Interstate Highway System that greatly benefit the broad economy.)
As to our expensive social welfare programs (by which I mean for present purposes mainly Medicare and Medicaid because I think that for many decades the working class and middle class and their employers have not only fully funded Social Security but they have been subsidizing general federal government spending with their excess social security taxes), I think these programs contribute to social peace and that that indirectly benefits wealthy people. For example, it’s a truism in modern American politics that working class people do not vote in their own best interests but vote instead in a way that favors people above them on the economic ladder. Knock a great big hole in the Medicaid and Medicare budgets and see how long that lasts.
I’d be interested in whether professional economists and others in a position to judge think these observations and ideas in defense of the federal progressive income tax are sound.
Anonymous Reply:
April 30th, 2011 at 11:54 pm
please provide just one iota of proof
JohnBernardBooks Reply:
May 1st, 2011 at 10:45 am
“How do you educate people who have closed their minds to anything but this radical agenda?”
got me on that one. How do we educate you?
Karen Reply:
April 30th, 2011 at 5:06 pm
Gee, I wonder who pushed this? Oh wait, Bush.
Bush Push On Housing
Sets Goal of 5.5 Million New Minority Homeowners By Decade’s End
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/06/17/politics/main512475.shtml
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JohnBernardBooks Reply:
May 1st, 2011 at 8:55 am
can a liberal focus? Yes we got its all Boosh’s fault.
How
Karen Reply:
May 1st, 2011 at 3:07 pm
John,
Actually, Bush had some help from 3 GOP Congresscritters and Bill Clinton.
Glass-Steagall Act Repealed in 1999 – What Your Congressman Said Then
http://www.harikari.com/politics/glass-steagall-act-repealed-in-1999-%E2%80%93-what-your-congressman-said-then.html
Both parties bear responsibility for this mess along with the financial institutions. My grandmother always said “moderation in all things.”
JohnBernardBooks Reply:
May 1st, 2011 at 3:31 pm
Karen I got it…”its all Booshs fault.”
Delores Michael says:
Mr. Burka,
Please return to your initial comment after gambling legislation hits the House Floor.
We will see how the current cheerleading matches up.
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Karen Reply:
May 1st, 2011 at 6:32 am
Didn’t Straus say he would recuse himself.
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JohnBernardBooks Reply:
May 1st, 2011 at 3:32 pm
and what else could the democrat backed Straus say?
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Karen Reply:
May 1st, 2011 at 4:15 pm
It appears to me that Straus’ word is good. This is an article by Mr. Burka from 2009. I see no reason why Straus would not do this again.
Regular Joe | Texas Monthly
April 01, 2009 Paul Burka | Texas Monthly
“In this legislative session, as in previous ones, the racing industry is asking lawmakers to authorize video lottery terminals (slot machines) at racetracks. Success is unlikely, and Straus has signed a letter recusing himself from participating in or presiding over any debate involving the issue.”
http://www.joestraus.org/media/11
Mod Squad says:
Straus plays the moderate card in the only way he can–conference committees. They are so inside baseball that critics cannot criticize them the same way they do other items.
But the bottom line is that he has allowed the majority to rule like he said he would.
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Bob Reply:
May 1st, 2011 at 4:42 pm
The majority of the Republicans have consistently voted exactly as Joe Straus instructed them to vote. After all everyone who is paying attention knows that Straus , Steve Mosten, the Trial Lawyers and the gambling industry bought and paid for most of those who voted for him to be Speaker. The others liberals masquadering as Republicans.
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Julie says:
Many of the new Republican members of the House insist the state must live within its means. With that being their viewpoint, they should roll back various tax exemptions, so the state can live within its means. The state can no longer afford some of the exemptions it handed out to businesses.
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JohnBernardBooks Reply:
May 1st, 2011 at 3:33 pm
Julie the republican, you forgot “and raise taxes” its the republican way.
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Anonymous says:
Straus is doing very well. He is not providing any leadership, but he is doing well at being the genial traffic cop he promised to be. If the members continue to want this he is fine. If they decide they want someone to exert more leadership to get particular things done he may face trouble.
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Anonymous says:
These last two topics are insufferably boring.
Why don’t you address the changes in the House map adn whether Perry will sign it.
I don’t even think you’ve addressed the changes in your own district that seem to remove it from any Republican challenge.
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Karen says:
So how did Texas avoid the mortgage crisis?
Consumer financial protection, Texas-style
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/04/consumer_financial_protection.html
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anon-p Reply:
April 30th, 2011 at 10:49 pm
Karen> So how did Texas avoid the mortgage crisis? Consumer financial protection, Texas-style.
Karen is correct. The limits on cash-outs and piggybacks and low-equity mortgages we put in place in the wake of 80′s bank failures prevented the worst from occurring in Texas.
It was good legislation and, dare I say it? – good, necessary regulation of the financial marketplace.
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Karen Reply:
May 1st, 2011 at 4:15 am
Guess who is responsible for the good regulations?
Why you should hug a Realtor
excerpts
“But on the other side was an even more powerful lobby — powerful because it was generous to legislators, but also because the legislators “see them in the grocery stores, at the Lions’ Club, at church or synagogue. We don’t recognize the bankers anymore.”
The speaker was Steve Wolens, the former Democratic representative from Dallas who carried a bill for the Realtors’ lobby.
The lobby had always opposed any bills allowing home equity loans.
So did the Farm Bureau, but the Realtors realized they couldn’t keep the door completely shut.
Their concern: If people borrow too much against their houses, when the economy goes south foreclosures soar, prices sink and a lot of people are cast into misery.”
Guess what else was written into the legislation by the Senate?
“In the Senate, Republican Jerry Patterson of Pasadena (now land commissioner) was one of the key backers. He wanted the bill to be more liberal but went with Wolens’ bill — and had to add even another consumer protection element to get the final vote he needed, from then-Sen. Gonzalo Barrientos of Austin.
What’s more, all the protections were written into the state Constitution, making it hard for legislators and lobbyists to quietly sabotage them.”
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/casey/6943875.html
So you can tout Perry all you want but if it had not been for regulations imposed by Democrats in this legislation, Texas would have really been in a mess coupled with Perry’s failed margins tax swap. Realators and Democrats are to thank because they pressed for and won safeguards. The most important was that homeowners can only borrow against 80 percent of the appraised value of their homes.
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anon-p Reply:
May 2nd, 2011 at 12:49 pm
Governor Bush signed the bill into law? And State Senator Patterson was key in getting it through the Senate?
Dang, I thought this was purely the byproduct of Democrats in the early nineties, and now you’re telling me Republicans were key in getting this legislation approved?
Well, there goes the theory that Republicans can’t pass appropriate fiscal regulatory laws.
Pat says:
Straus’s biggest asset is also his biggest liability. He is the weakest member of the state’s leadership triumvirate. This is mitigated by Dewhurst’s effective neutralization in the Senate. Perry, however, seems as powerful and involved as ever.
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Bodhisattva Reply:
May 3rd, 2011 at 10:58 pm
“Perry, however, seems as powerful and involved as ever.”
Damning Perry with faint praise?
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Truman Sparks says:
Hey folks you are missing the big picture here. If the dollar continues to devalue and George Soros shorts it and makes billions what will you say about this administration? Ask England what happened to them in 1992? The stimulus was a ruse. Get it?
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longleaf Reply:
May 1st, 2011 at 6:18 am
While neither major bought-off political party in this country favors regulation of Soros’ and others’ ability to be able to short various currencies, it is the GOPers at this point who want to roll back even what little regulation was put into place last year.
If you don’t like what Soros is able to do, regulate the currencies. Propose a new fixed exchange rate system or something. But don’t just bring him up as a bogeyman and then turn around and defend his and every other parasitic financier’s right to be exempt from all regulation.
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Anon says:
Straus is doing just fine. The Committees are working as they are supposed to for a change. Straus has settled in despite what about 20 far right-wing extremists want to see in leadership management..that is a radical agenda taking Texas down the worst path manageable. He is holding his own with Dewust and Perry. Watching the redistricting marathon proved he and Solomons (and his leadership team) could do the impossible, pass a good map reflective of the voting patterns in Texas. The final budget will be a huge test as to how the public and Republican conservatives view Straus and whether the members want him to continue as their Speaker. I expect some illegal immigration legislation will pass out of the House next week and then the burden is on Dewhurst to deliver some leadership.
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Truman Sparks Reply:
April 30th, 2011 at 9:31 pm
Are you kidding? The House is crazy. There is no discipline or reason. They vote like kids on a playground. They are acting like idiots. They will do permanent damage to this state unless they start acting like adults. There is no leadership in the body right now.
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anon-p says:
Anon> Straus is doing just fine. The Committees are working as they are supposed to for a change.
So… Any predictions of a last minute collapse like last session with the death of many bills?
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Anonymous says:
As long as Denise Davis is involved in the Straus regime, he is sure to fail. Sad to watch.
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U232 Reply:
April 30th, 2011 at 11:52 pm
And we’ve seen so much failure since Denise has been his Chief–failure like winning a Speaker’s Race 135-15; failure like appointing competent committee chairs who can actually run their own committees without babysitting from 2W.13; failure like passing the most Conservative budget in Texas history; failure like standing up to bullies like Danny Boy and passing a more effective sonogram bill; failure like passing a House redistricting map that is fair, legal, and maximizes Republican representation for the next 10 years….yeah, it’s been failure all around, kind of like Anonymous at 10:54′s failure to make a point.
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paulburka Reply:
May 2nd, 2011 at 12:35 pm
Denise has her detractors, to be sure — mostly the Democrats who didn’t like her rulings for Craddick, and the conservatives, who didn’t like her turning against Craddick. But she’s got Straus’s complete confidence.
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Anonymous says:
U232… you nailed it. She didn’t do any of those things. Speaker Straus did. I know she gets really confused about that… She forgot Craddick was her boss too.
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Karen says:
My son-in-law is an electrician that works for a private contractor on Fort Hood. He said that the new hospital being built will employ 500 electricians and take 10 years to construct. Stimulus money. There is a ton of construction going on at Fort Hood.
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/04/army_stimulus_041109w/
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JohnBernardBooks says:
I got it already. All we have to do is elect democrats and all our needs will be met…..ummm ummm Obama.
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Julie says:
Truman Sparks,
Your last comment rings true.
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JohnBernardBooks Reply:
May 1st, 2011 at 3:38 pm
Julie the republican unfortunately life isn’t a sixties movie you seem to be stuck in.
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Anonymous Reply:
May 2nd, 2011 at 12:21 am
what’s the matter jbb, mommy run out of cheesy-poofs?
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Anonymous says:
Here’s the future of Texas (see below), once we sock it to the “undertaxed” folks by squeezing more “revenue” out of them by implementing taxation schemes that are the dreams of commentators on this blog like Karen and Republican poser Julie:
“A study by the Illinois Policy Institute, a market-oriented think tank, concludes that between 1991 and 2009, Illinois lost more than 1.2 million residents — more than one every 10 minutes — to other states. Between 1995 and 2007, the total net income leaving Illinois was $23.5 billion. The five states receiving most refugees from Illinois were Florida, Indiana, Wisconsin, Arizona and Texas. Two are Illinois’ neighbors, three have warm weather, two — Florida and Texas — have no income tax. In January, a lame-duck session of Illinois’ legislature — including 18 Democrats who were defeated in November — raised the personal income tax 67 percent and the corporate tax almost 50 percent. This and the increase — from 3 percent to 5 percent — in the tax on small businesses make Illinois, as the Wall Street Journal says, “one of the most expensive places in the world to conduct business.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/working-up-a-tax-storm-in-illinois/2011/04/28/AFAUZzGF_story.html
What you gotta love about liberals is their “the sky is falling” screeching about budget cuts, but never uttering a syllable of what happens when you decide to keep increasing the tax burden on citizens. Libs like Burka and his fellow travelers on this blog live in fantasy land because they think you can tax with impunity with no consequences. Thus they will never talk about the consequneces of such governmental action.
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Karen Reply:
May 1st, 2011 at 3:21 pm
Perhaps if Texas had implemented a fair and adequate income tax instead of Perry’s margins tax swap which is unfair and inadequate, we might not be in the mess.
There needs to be a balanced approach to the budget deficit problem; fix the problem, budget cuts, use some rainy day funds, close tax cuts/loopholes and raise some taxes/revenue. Actually share the sacrifices. Budget cuts only is not the solution especially if you don’t fix what caused the problem.
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JohnBernardBooks Reply:
May 1st, 2011 at 3:39 pm
“Perhaps if Texas had implemented a fair and adequate income tax”
I know if we’d just raise taxes we wouldn’t be suffering.
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Karen Reply:
May 1st, 2011 at 5:02 pm
Perry’s Margins Tax swap is an income tax on businesses. He just renamed it to a “margins tax.”
While I certainly believe Texas has some wasteful spending, the structural budget deficit created a revenue problem NOT a spending problem. A smart businessman, faced with this problem would cut spending but he would also revise his business plan to create increased revenue.
Fiftycal Reply:
May 1st, 2011 at 6:13 pm
What Karen “the republican” is saying is “TAX SOMEBODY ELSE so I still get MY freebies! I don’t care who it is as long as it isn’t ME”! Otherwise, “Karen”, why don’t you bundle up all YOUR “extra” money and mail a check to Austin and DC? You know the “10,000″ teachers that showed up in Austin to “protest”? Well, all they had to do was “donate” ONE MILLION DOLLARS EACH and the same level of WASTEFUL spending by educrats could continue unabated. For some reason, all those “hero” educrats would rather TAX everyone ELSE for $500 each to continue the WASTEFUL spending.
Karen Reply:
May 2nd, 2011 at 6:58 am
Fiftycal,
We pay federal income taxes, sales taxes, payroll taxes, property taxes, and various other assorted taxes and fees.
Freebies? Property tax exemptions–homestead and ag,(we actually farm and ranch), U.S. farm subsidy–a whopping $350.00 this year and I support ending farm subsidies and various and assorted legal federal tax breaks and loopholes that everyone takes advantage of in U.S. if they file an itemized tax return. I also support ending those. Tax Reform.
My son applied for and received scholarships last year–but I really don’t consider that a “freebie” as he was Valedictorian and top 10% of his class and earned those scholarships IMHO. Yes, he atended those bad public schools from pre-K on.
Indirect freebies: Rural electric and water subsidies, grants and USDA loan programs and all sorts of govt. grants to the public and private sector that benefits my family and I both directly and indirectly.
Another indirect freebie:
My son-in-law has a job on Fort Hood due to the stimulus program because he works for a private sector employee who won the bid on the project. I am so grateful because now we won’t have to “support” him because this will keep him from being laid off as he will be able to continue to contribute to my daughter’s and grandchildren’s support. My daughter works too. Both of my grandsons work part time.
I know some parents whose children and grandchildren have moved in with them because these adult children have been unable to find a job or are underemployed.
paulburka Reply:
May 2nd, 2011 at 12:53 pm
Re Anonymous @ 12:50 p.m. 5/1, who writes:
“What you gotta love about liberals is their “the sky is falling” screeching about budget cuts, but never uttering a syllable of what happens when you decide to keep increasing the tax burden on citizens. Libs like Burka and his fellow travelers on this blog live in fantasy land because they think you can tax with impunity with no consequences. Thus they will never talk about the consequences of such governmental action.
My response:
Does anonymous regard tolls as a tax? How about tuition deregulation? How about fee increases? How about mammoth debt service? As far as I can tell, the state’s leadership believes precisely that they can raise the cost of government with no political or economic consequences. They have gotten away with it for years. I voted against highway bonds. I voted against the cancer bonds. Texas politicians don’t raise taxes; they just repeat the mantra of no new taxes and then impose hidden costs on the public, who think they are getting something for nothing. And you call me a lib?
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Julie says:
Anonymous,
No one dreams about raising taxes, but when essential services are facing draconian cuts, as they would under the House budget, then it’s time to act.
You say Republicans believe that cutting spending is the only way to go.
You clearly don’t understand the Republican Party, which does not rule out tax increases. The party’s platform states, “We believe government should tax only to raise money for its essential functions.”
Republican Lt. Gov. Dewhurst says the Legislature should provide sufficient funding to protect essential services like education. In fact, the Senate budget would provide school districts with about the same amount of funding as they currently receive, while the House budget would slash billions in funding to school districts, resulting in the layoff of tens of thousands of teachers.
Another Republican, Gov. Rick Perry has signed about half a dozen tax increases into law that raised state taxes by billions of dollars. Since Perry has signed off on higher taxes, I suppose that makes him a Democrat, too, under your way of thinking.
You say, “It is time for the state government to learn to get by with less as milions of other families have to do when times are tight.” Mr. Anonymous, the millions of families you mention will have to live with a whole lot less than they do now if the House’s awful budget is adopted by the Legislature. They’ll have thousands of fewer teachers to teach their children and thousands of seniors will lose a place to live because scores of nursing homes in the state would close. And tens of thousands of low income families would lose critical social services.
The Legislature should seriously consider eliminating some of the tax exemptions that the state can no longer afford, so the state can live within its means.
The argument that tax increases for essential services would cause job loses isn’t necessarily so. Three million net jobs were created during President Bush’s eight years in office, following the Bush tax cut, while 23 million net jobs were created during President Clinton’s two terms, even though he raised taxes.
Your beliefs, Mr. Anonymous, do not represent the core principals of the Republican Party. Instead, you’re embracing the views of the EXTREME far right, which has been busy trying to repaint the GOP as the party of “NO,” even if it means firing tens of thousands of teachers.
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Anonymous Reply:
May 1st, 2011 at 5:22 pm
“The argument that tax increases for essential services would cause job loses isn’t necessarily so. Three million net jobs were created during President Bush’s eight years in office, following the Bush tax cut, while 23 million net jobs were created during President Clinton’s two terms, even though he raised taxes.”
Nice try with your pro-tax increase argument, Republican poser Julie (which by the way is a standard argument used by Democratic henchmen like Paul Begala and James Carville, just so we can establish a baseline of what your true beliefs are).
While its true that job creation surged during the Clinton years, the tax increases were not the reason. Clnton was able to get away with causing little damage to the economy with his tax increases because other factors were far more determinative in making the 1990′s a boom time. Fortunately, the Clinton presidency was offset by a Republican Congress for much of his terms which kept spending at a much lower level than what it otherwise would have been. Further, the downfall of the U.S.S.R. opened up markets for trading partners in Eastern Europe that had never existed before with a very positive benefit on the economy, Finally, this was the dawning of the Al Gore invented age of the internet and the technology boom had very positive benefits for the economy.
Now, contrast all this with what is going on now. Tax increases in times of economic turmoil are a very bad idea (except in the world of your favorite economist, left wing crazy man Paul Krugman). Illinois is finding this out the hard way. Why in the hell do you you think that even very liberal governors like Andrew Cuomo are resisting the call for more tax increases? It’s because they know that it is a recipe for disaster. But hey, if you say that the core principles of the Republican party are to the left of Andrew Cuomo, please find a candidate to run as a Republican with that message and see where it gets you.
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JohnBernardBooks says:
“Instead, you’re embracing the views of the EXTREME far right, which has been busy trying to repaint the GOP as the party of “NO,” even if it means firing tens of thousands of teachers”
unfortunately its the grownups who git to say “NO!”.
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Karen Reply:
May 1st, 2011 at 3:55 pm
Grownups? Not so much. Two year olds who throw fits and tell lies to get their way? Oh yeah!
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Karen says:
Reagan Budget Director: ‘Absolutely’ Raise Taxes, Just Like Reagan Did
excerpt
“STOCKMAN: Absolutely. In 1982, we were looking at the jaws of the worst recession since the 1930s. We overdid it in 1981, cut taxes too much. We came back with a big deficit reduction plan in 1982. Unemployment’s at 10 percent, the economy is in dire shape, and we raise taxes by 1.2 percent of GDP, which would be $150 billion a year right now — not 10 years down the road — but right now.”
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/05/01/stockman-absolutely-raise-taxes/
Bush cut taxes twice–way too much and then last year Congress extended those taxes. Big mistake.
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Julie says:
Karen,
Thanks. Yes, it was two cuts cuts under Bush.
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Karen says:
Julie,
It was two UNFUNDED Tax Cuts, two UNFUNDED wars and UNFUNDED Medicare prescription drug benefit under Bush.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich says Bush tax cuts caused a substantial part of the deficit
http://www.politifact.com/ohio/statements/2011/apr/29/dennis-kucinich/rep-dennis-kucinich-says-bush-tax-cuts-caused-subs/
TRUE.
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Julie says:
Karen
About $4.5 trillion was added to the deficit during Bush’s watch, with the wars he began and his drug prescription program continuing to add to the deficit.
The blame for the deficit belongs to both the Republican and Democratic parties. Congress should institute a balanced budget amendment or make major changes to the Entitlement programs.
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Anonymous says:
Republican poser Julie says: “The blame for the deficit belongs to both the Republican and Democratic parties.”
Actually it is unfair to say that both parties are to be equally blamed when one party is spedning three times as fast as the other. Using numbers from the U.S. Treasury, we see that the debt during Bush’s eight years in office increased from $5.7 trillion to $10.6 trillion, or $4.9 trillion over eight years. That’s bad; that’s basically $610 billion per year. But in the less than three years Obama has been in office, the debt has increased from $10.6 trillion to $14.2 trillion, a $3.6 trillion increase in about 27 months. In other words, Obama is increasing the debt by $1.6 trillion per year, three times as fast as Bush.
Q: So why would someone who says she is a Republican unfairly citicize her own party and fail to give the real facts that would be damning to the opposition party?
A: Because she is a Republican poser, like Julie.
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Julie says:
Anonymous,
You can continue with your fantasy but in truth, both the Republican and Democratic Parties are responsible for the more than $14 trillion national deficit.
When President Reagan took office, the national deficit was slightly under $1 trillion.
Here’s the approximate amounts each president has added to the national debt, according to the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
President Reagan, $1.9 trillion
President George HW Bush, $1.6
President Clinton, $1.5 trillion
President Bush, $4.9 trillion
President Obama, $3.7 trillion
The three Republican presidents added more than $8 trillion to the national debt, while the two Democratic presidents added about $5 trillion to the national debt.
The facts speak for themselves. Both parties are guilty of overspending.
And together, the two parties must work together to dig us out of the big hole. Neither party can do it alone.
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Karen Reply:
May 2nd, 2011 at 5:45 am
Julie,
I disagree with you regarding “wasteful spending.” Unless we chose not to fund the wars,(we didn’t) the American people should have been told the two wars were unfunded and given a choice as to borrow the money and pay for them or increase taxes to pay for them. I do not recall that conversation with that American people or did I miss it? The same goes for Obama.
To suggest that Social Security and Medicare should be cut or dismantled to continue to support this unknown American expense is irresponsible and dishonest by our Congressmen.
Just how many bases does the Pentagon have?
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2011/01/10/pentagon_military_bases_abroad
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JohnBernardBooks Reply:
May 2nd, 2011 at 6:35 am
Julie the republican, you do know that Congress funds the budget?
Since 9/30/06 our debt was 8.5 trillion under the democrat led Congress our debt increased to 13.5 trillion over $5 Billion. Only someone poorly informed would not know this fact.
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JohnBernardBooks Reply:
May 2nd, 2011 at 6:41 am
before someone gets upset over the typo, the last post should read $5 trillion. Yep $5trillion since 2006 under the dem led Congress.
Speaker Beohner introduced $100 billion in cuts to the current budget, and democrats stonewalled them.
Rep Ryan has introduced over $4 trillion in cuts which the President and democrats oppose.
Don’t let these facts get in the way of your liberal logic.
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Anonymous Reply:
May 2nd, 2011 at 8:31 am
Any honest Republican would acknowledge that Obama’s spending is much worse than GWB’s and that the GOP is showing the courage to propose painful but necessary cuts to preserve programs like Medicare that would otherwise go bankrupt if not for Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget. The Democrats on the other hand are not serious about getting spending under control.
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thebigeasy2000 Reply:
May 2nd, 2011 at 2:25 pm
You are drinking somebody koolaide on this post…
I wish you would do just a little bit of research before you just make this stuff up….please for god sake try to have some ethics..
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anita says:
Strauss looks good, especially in comparison to Dewhurst and Perry. Dewhurst set the Senate back significantly last week with his clumsy words on the budget. And Perry is just unable to muster the vision and leadership necessary for the position.
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Birther says:
I WANT JOE STRAUS TO SHOW US HIS BIRTH CERTIFICATE’!!!!!!!!!! WE KNOW HE AIN’T CHRISTIAN….I BET HE WASN’T EVEN BORN IN TEXAS?!?!?!?!?
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hooboy! Reply:
May 2nd, 2011 at 10:36 am
STFU
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Anonymous says:
“I think the members looked around, saw that they could do anything they wanted to do without the chair’s interference, and they thought, ‘Hey, this isn’t so bad. In fact, it’s pretty good.’
My teenagers would love for our “house” to run the same way….
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A2Z Reply:
May 2nd, 2011 at 1:22 pm
Yes, anny, but “the members” aren’t teenagers. They’re adults, or at least they’re supposed to be.
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Ike's lawyer says:
My memory of the Reagan, Bush I, and Clinton years includes that Clinton inherited a large federal debt and there was a lot of worry at the time about whether the federal government could get its fiscal house in order; that this worry, combined with the fact that private borrowers had to compete with the federal government’s borrowing to service that debt, was a serious drag on the economy; that the Clinton tax increase was the major factor in getting the federal fiscal house in order; and that repairing federal finances combined with the information technology revolution and the hard work and smart work of a lot of people during those years to bring on the nineties boom.
Bush II inherited a federal budget in surplus (at a time when the oldest baby boomers were only 10 years away from retirement and there was still a lot of federal debt so there was good reason to at least consider fiscal prudence as a policy option), and also inherited interest rates that had been kept artificially high by the Fed to keep the brakes slammed down hard on inflation during the boom economy of the nineties. So when the nineties boom inevitably sputtered, Bush and the Fed had powerful tools at their disposal to soften the impact. Doubtless the tax cuts stimulated the economy to some extent. My guess is that the ability to dramatically slash interest rates and keep them historically low stimulated the economy even more. I’ll leave it to professional economists (the type who can be trusted to not invariably push a partisan agenda) to decide whether the tax cut or the ability to slash interest rates and keep them low had the bigger effect in softening the end of the nineties boom and the bust in info technology stocks.
But it seems to me that Bush II and the Fed kept interest rates and tax rates so low so long that they inflated a housing bubble (all that money had to go somewhere …). Both Republicans and Democrats have wanted to use federal policy to encourage a high degree of home ownership but I doubt either political party held a gun to the financial industry and the home loan industry to make them gut lending standards, package the resulting loans as shaky securities, and dub those securities AAA on the theory that housing prices could only continue to up and up and up so that people would always be able to refinance their shaky loans. (One of my favorite sayings comes from Herbert Stein, Ben Stein’s father and Nixon’s economist – “If something cannot go on forever it will stop.”) But the shenanigans of the financial industry in those days does seem to point up the need for reasonable regulations, and the people in a position to regulate would have been in the executive branch of the federal government – the Bush administration. If I understand the ideas of devotees of Ayn Rand (including Alan Greenspan I believe), they think that captains of finance and industry can be trusted to self-regulate because as rational people they know it is in their own best long term interest to do so. But I think history has often shown what many of know about human nature – there will always be people who are willing to take the money and run and sometimes greed is contagious.
Obama inherited both an economy in shambles and federal finances in shambles. His options were much more limited than Bush II and Greenspan but the need to act was much greater – he needed to act to keep the Great Recession from turning into a second Great Depression. So he used the one tool he had – using government spending to stimulate the economy short term. It seems to me to have mostly worked. We’re not out of the woods and it would be great if employment were stronger but the recession has not turned into depression and we seem for the time being to have pulled back from the precipice.
As an Eisenhower Republican I like balanced budgets, a lot, but it makes sense to me that when you’re facing an emergency you do what you need to do, and sometimes that will mean spending more federal money to repel invaders if it’s invaders that need repelling or to keep demand high enough in the short run to keep a cratering economy from plunging into a long and dark depression if it’s a cratering economy that you’re facing. But all the while we need to keep in mind that in the long run the money coming in and the money going out need to be in balance.
When facing the sorts of choices Texas faces now, it makes perfect sense to me that we should study both the effects of proposed dramatic cuts in spending on the Texas economy, as the LBB did under that new addition to the house rules, and that we also should seriously study the effects that any proposed significant tax hike would have on the Texas economy. It makes no sense to me that we should be standing around shouting at one another about the effects of a tax hike unless we’ve had honest professionals, who do not have a partisan agenda to push, look into the matter and report back.
But in the current political environment it is very probably not possible to calmly look at the effects of a variety of spending cuts on people and on the economy, look at the effects of a variety of tax and fee increases on people and on the economy, run some combinations of spending cuts and tax and fee increases and see what the effects would be, and have the legislature and the governor make and defend their choices.
So I’ll repeat my belief that perhaps it’s time for many of us to think about lawful and thoughtful things we might be able to do that, in combination with what other like-minded people may come up with, stand a good chance of changing the political climate for the better. I don’t think we can wait on the political operatives of either major party to do it for us.
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Ike's lawyer says:
With respect, anonymous at 9:56 PM, I’ll point out that your teenagers are not adults who have a certificate of election and constituents to represent.
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Anonymous Reply:
May 1st, 2011 at 10:59 pm
Exactly…which makes my point! Thank you 150 adults with a “certificate of election and constituents to represent” especially need a leader and not left to do “anything they wanted”.
Also..this is a blog. With repsect save your long missives for Op-Ed print.
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Ike's lawyer says:
You are free to ignore them.
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Julie says:
Karen,
I’m mot suggesting that Entitlement programs are “wasteful spending,” wording you attributed to me.
Entitlement programs comprise two-thirds of the federal budget, so when it comes to reducing the deficit, those programs will have to be reconfigured.
Things that could be done. For example, require a co-pay and deductibles for Medicaid.
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JohnBernardBooks says:
“Entitlement programs comprise two-thirds of the federal budget, so when it comes to reducing the deficit, those programs will have to be reconfigured”
finally some sense from Julie the republican.
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BirtherTeaPartyNutjob says:
Show us the birth certificate joe!!!! (And after that, your school report cards)……..(and the birth certificate will probably look fradulent allowing you to pull off the greatest con jobs in history)
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thebigeasy2000 says:
Paul, I have to admit that I recently became more interested in your blog because of the information from Karen! She is quite amazing. Thanks
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Kirk says:
I guess the VisitBigBend folks didn’t hear how we HATE those popup ads that cover up what we are trying to read on the Burka Blog!
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hooboy! says:
They certainly aren’t convincing ME to go to Big Bend…
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Straus is doing great says:
Straus is doing great if you don’t want to require E-Verify in the State of Texas. Straus and his committee chairs have not let any bills that would try to stop illegal aliens from working illegally in Texas or using hospitals for free medical care.
There are over 2 Million Illegal aliens in Texas, with over 1 Million Illegal aliens illegally working in jobs (like construction, hotels, and restaurants) that unemployed Texans need.
Illegal aliens are costing Texas Taxpayers over $8 BILLION dollars every year.
Yeh, Straus is doing great for the Illegal aliens.
What good is a Republican Super Majority if Straus and his committee chairs don’t pass any bills to limit illegal aliens.
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Cow Droppings Reply:
May 2nd, 2011 at 3:54 pm
e-verify is a red herring. It brings up a ton of false positives as exposed by the Wall Street Journal in early 2010. The concept is good, but in practice it is a nightmare.
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Julie says:
You’ve gone off the deep end with your comment about illegals.
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He Who Knows Everything says:
Have any of you’ll seen Atlas Shrugged?
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