Comments on: Press Ignores Earmarks

By: NortonPete

NortonPete — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 01:06:17 +0000

Martian,
Check out the debt at the Revolutionary War (2nd link), almost 40%. It seems our founding fathers had the good sense to borrow against the future.

Note: Regrets about the “fairley”, that is even a bit much for a typo-impaired fool like me.

By: martian

martian — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 00:12:53 +0000

Have we ever fought a war without going into debt to do so? I don’t think so, Bill.

By: NortonPete

NortonPete — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 22:59:41 +0000

This is a better graph of GDP vs Debt.
Perhaps the above link should be removed the rest of the website is fairley biased.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:US_Public_debt_per_GDP_1791-2006.svg

By: NortonPete

NortonPete — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 22:54:45 +0000

Our Debt vs GDP did dip in 2000 but it is basically the same amount 70% today as it was from 1992 – 1998. The ratio was highest during WWII, being greater than 100% and didn’t return to below 70% until the late 1950′s. We won WWII because we had courage and we were not afraid to take a risk.
Here is a graph: http://www.cedarcomm.com/~stevelm1/debt_gdp.png

By: Gaius

Gaius — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 21:43:51 +0000

That’s nice, Bill. I am against earmarks regardless of party involved. Please do take the partisan talking points elsewhere.

By: Bill Franklin

Bill Franklin — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 21:32:50 +0000

George W. Bush increased our nation’s debt by 57% (3.25 TRILLION) in the eight years he’s been in office. You really want the press to swoon over his curtailing earmarks initiative, the boon of which occured under his watch and initiated by Republicans?

Funny how he waits to do this initiative until the Republicans lose control of congress. If he was really serious about earmarks he would have signed this legistlation in 2006 when earmarks were completley out of control. This is some last ditch effort to make some appearance that Bush is a fiscal conservative.

At its height earmarks accounted for roughly 13 billion in spending. Bush is asking congress for another 70 BILLION for Iraq. Fiscal conservativism indeed. And Osama still hasn’t been brought to justice.

By: martian

martian — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 18:51:54 +0000

That’s because the whole tone of both articles is to downplay any effects Bush might have in the last year. The earmarks is not a small thing – it’s huge and cutting them down is extremely popular. The MSM doesn’t want to mention anything that might raise his approval ratings even 1 point.