staying the course in Iraq would cost hundreds of billions of dollars more
Aren't they paying attention? McCain's plan is to win in Iraq and use the money saved by achieving victory to balance the budget. Why isn't this being reported? (Actually I may have read about it in the NYT.)
Seriously though, it is constantly reported that Obama may "refine" his position on troop withdrawal and then concluded that his position isn't much different from McCain's now. But really McCain has now flip-flopped and talked about drawing down because of this victory he is foreseeing, so his position has actually changed to more closely match Obama's, not vice-versa. But that's not the media story.
Posted by CG at July 14, 2008 03:21 PMNice try Turkana, secret plans and all. Seem to remember a "100 days" program that had nothing behind it, yet it was carried off beautifly. Do you want to talk about Schumer or maybe Dodd and Conrad? How about those mandates for corn ethanol that Daschle/Obama loves? Schumer rights a letter about a bank and 11 days later the bank has had $1.3B withdrawn! The bank failed. Isn't he in the Democratic leadership? Great leadership there.
Dodd and Conrad get VIP loans from Countrywide. Dodd's on the oversight committee for institutions like Countrywide. A full 1.5 points off what the rest of us get! Nice, real nice, another great leader there. Where's the ethics, get rid of Delay, vote on some fluff piece last August, put us in charge and everythings just fine. Not!
Then there's good old Daschle with the lobbyist wife. Nothing wrong with her profession, just having the ear, intimate ear of a guy whose Obama's right hand man...
Food prices going up because more and more. Gas prices going up more and more, both connected now. Supply, low cost supply all around us and the enviros won't let us get it.
Posted by peter at July 14, 2008 03:28 PMpeter: Ever get tired of using propoganda techniques and logical fallacies? Divert attention from the question at hand. Assume that sequence of events implies causality. Misstate facts (A full 1.5 points off what the rest of us get! -- not true, those discounts were widely available to those with excellent credit). Repeat falsehoods frequently.
There are conservative voices who can construct a logical argument and participate in a Socratic dialog. Then there are those whose sole purpose is to cause misery. Guess which one you are?
Posted by Anonny at July 14, 2008 04:11 PMWe all know McCain is terrible, that doesn't make Obama good though. I think it would be more helpful to explain Obama's plan for recovery contrasted against McCain's.
Posted by Radix at July 14, 2008 04:57 PMThe economy is sluggish because of high oil prices. Oil prices have doubled the past year, like a tax hike on you. If you were spending less on gasoline, you'd be spending more at the malls. Lower energy prices would be like a tax cut.
McCain has proposed 45 new nuclear power plants and maybe an addtional 55 more. McCain has proposed increasing domestic oil production as a temporary fix. We have tons of natural gas we could be using for cars instead of electrical power plants.
We could be doing like France does to generate electricity (nuclear power).
We could be doing what South Africa does to generate gasoline (synthetic fuel from coal). Link. Just the state of Illinois has more fuel capacity via coal than Saudi Arabia does via oil.
Meanwhile, Obama's energy plans are nonsense. Do nothing. Raise taxes on oil companies. Wear a sweater. Buy a bike.
The economy itself is sluggish. If the US had addressed the energy issue the past 30 years, we wouldn't be where we are right now.
The 2008 election is about energy. Both candidates need to prioritize it, because the voters sure have.
Posted by Muck at July 14, 2008 06:52 PMWe could be doing like France does to generate electricity (nuclear power).
That covers their electrical needs -- but then the French have little access to oil or coal so they needed something else for electrical.
But for cars they do what the rest of Europe does -- tax the hell out of petrol at the pump, tax the hell out of cars with large engines (the French definition of "large engine" is 2.0 litres and larger -- and applies to roughly 95% of cars sold in the U.S.), and subsidize the hell out of mass transit, especially high speed trains.
Are you lining up behind those proposals Muck? Or were you just cherry picking an isolated fact and ignoring the complete picture, as usual for the conservosphere?
Posted by Anonny at July 14, 2008 08:37 PMThe economy itself is sluggish. If the US had addressed the energy issue the past 30 years, we wouldn't be where we are right now.
Interesting that you use the figure 30 years. That would be 1978. The year Jimmy Carter proposed a program of energy independence by 1985. The Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats killed that.
In the intervening 30 years:
> Republicans controlled the Presidency and both houses of Congress for 6 years
> Republicans controlled 2 of the 3 for 12 years
> Democrats controlled 2 of the 3 for 8 years
> Democrats controlled all 3 for 4 years
Who gets most of the blame?
Frankly, neither side gets much credit, with morons like Democratic representative Dingell propping up General Motors, and with Clinton's wasted "electric motor initiative". However, the Democrats at least took a shot at fixing the problem from time to time. The Republican'ts haven't been serious about energy issues since Nixon since the Clean Air and Clean Water acts in 1970.
Posted by Anonny at July 14, 2008 08:48 PMMuck - First, I think you are in way over your head.
You obviously went to the Carly Fiorina school of distortions and lies. Lets talk about whose Energy policy got us where we are currently. Now McBush wants to try and DRILL OUR WAY OUT OF THE PROBLEM. Unfortunately it doesn't matter how much we drill because we lack the refinery capacity.
Lets talk about deregulation of Mortgage lenders that allowed lenders to prey on consumers by putting them into exotic mortgages that they couldn't afford. In case you forgot that is why people are being thrown out of their houses. And local governments and schools are being forced to make drastic cuts in their budgets.
Lets talk about half million jobs being lost since Jan 08, Iraq and Afghanistan, the justice department, NCLB, illegal wireless taps, banking industry and deregulation in general.
Good thing REPUGS have extremely short memories, otherwise they would realize how bad they have screwed up the country. Not to mention TAKING A LONG HARD SHIT ON THE CONSTITUTION!
Posted by angryman at July 14, 2008 10:57 PMWell, maybe Obama should run on raising gas taxes.
What do you think, $8 a gallon? Maybe he should start talking about it.
Posted by Muck at July 14, 2008 11:54 PMThe high oil prices are the result of the collapsing dollar, which is tanking because of Reckless Repub economic policies and the mortgage scandal that Bush allowed to develop under his nose. The nation and government are now awash in an ocean of debt, with permanently high energy prices to boot.
The US doesn't have "tons of natural gas" as the clownish buffoon muck asserts---we are way, way past peak production of natural gas, have run out of domestic supplies and have had nothing but massive price spikes in the past few years. We have no facilities built to import supplies, either, as these are very expensive.
The idea that we should use the last of our dwindling natural gas supply for transportation (and not fertilizers and home heating) is simply cretionous and gives you idea how much muck "knows" about this crisis.
There is no way out of this crisis now. We fiddled around for 30 plus years, allowing Repubs to defend the building of a fleet of gas guzzlers which wasted even more precious fuel. Repub Reagan converted many electric plants to natural gas and we now use a massively declining irreplaceable fuel to generate electricity. And of course all this fossil fuel burning has destroyed the planet as well.
It's clear that there is nothing that can conceivably be done because the political elites are simply standing there mute. They have nothing serious to propose. There's nothing they can do. Build nuclear power plants? Who going to pay for it? The power companies could have built them anytime in the past 8 years---they don't want to, because they're too expensive and there's nowhere to put the waste you end up with. None of those considerations will change now, even if we should have increased our nuclear capacity 10 years ago.
The conservative movement was simply a nay-saying, head-in-the-sand collection of intellectually limited white male assholes. It still is. They have lamed us permanently with their Do Nothing approach and screwed the country forever. It's all over for the US but starting the retribution for our doom at this point.
Posted by euzoius at July 15, 2008 04:37 AMWe ought to pillage and burn Al Gore's energy mansion for energy.
Posted by m12 at July 15, 2008 09:57 AMpretty lame, IQ12
America has been looted by Bush and his korporate masters and you're still fixated on Gore
pathetic
Posted by gay veteran at July 15, 2008 06:12 PM