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Forum Post: Where is the Republican leadership?

Posted 10 years ago on Nov. 1, 2013, 10:37 p.m. EST by DouglasAdams (208)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement

George W Bush, Dick Cheney and Mitt Romney have all but disappeared from the face of the earth. Historically, don't the former Presidents, Vice Presidents, Presidential Candidates have an elder statesman role, subject matter expertise, patriotic duty, continuing civic responsibility, wisdom, legal insight, and perhaps love for this country that compels them toward further public service?

See the Democratic leadership from Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Hillary Clinton and Chelsea are participating in public service at a very high level after leaving the White House.

The Republican Party has let the leadership default to John Boehner, and Ted Cruz and the Tea Party who forced the Government shutdown for 16 days while the whole country teeters on the cliff of debt default. Where are the adults in the Republican Party?

Cheney and Bush should have and show more interest in the economy, creating jobs, and foreign policy since they are responsible for the condition these were in when Obama took office. Sara Palin was far more active politically after losing the election than Romney, Bush and Cheney who were fitted for higher positions.

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/10/16/totally_self_inflicted_damage_us_on

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/29/dick-cheney-canada-arrest_n_4175180.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/2/10/bushs_shrinking_world_george_w_bush

There is a leadership vacuum in the Republican Party. The solution is to fill the empty space with Democrats..

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5 Comments


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[-] 2 points by ThomasKent (131) 10 years ago

After Eisenhower every Republican President has overseen an escalation of economic decline.

The Nixon Shock was a series of economic measures taken by United States President Richard Nixon in 1971 including unilaterally canceling the direct convertibility of the United States dollar to gold. It helped end the existing Bretton Woods system of international financial exchange, ushering in the era of freely floating currencies that remains to the present day.

Reaganomics Reagan economics refers to the economic policies promoted by U.S. President Ronald Reagan during the 1980s and still widely practiced. These policies are commonly associated with supply-side economics, referred to as trickle-down economics by political opponents.

The four pillars of Reagan's economic policy were to reduce the growth of government spending, reduce the federal income tax and capital gains tax, reduce government regulation, and control the money supply in order to reduce inflation

George H. W. Bush administration efforts to gain control over the federal budget deficit, however, were problematic. One source of the difficulty was the savings and loan crisis. Savings banks – formerly tightly regulated, low-interest safe havens for ordinary people – had been deregulated, allowing these institutions to compete more aggressively by paying higher interest rates and by making riskier loans. Increases in the government’s deposit insurance guaranteed reduced consumer incentive to shun less-sound institutions. Fraud, mismanagement, and the choppy economy produced widespread insolvencies among these thrifts (the umbrella term for consumer-oriented institutions like savings and loan associations and savings banks). By 1993, the total cost of selling and shuttering failed thrifts was staggering, nearly $525,000-million.

In January 1990, President Bush presented his budget proposal to Congress. Democrats argued that administration budget projections were far too optimistic, and that meeting the deficit-reduction law would require tax increases and sharper cuts in defense spending. That June, after protracted negotiations, the president agreed to a tax increase. All the same, the combination of economic recession, losses from the savings and loan industry rescue operation, and escalating health care costs for Medicare and Medicaid offset all the deficit-reduction measures and produced a shortfall in 1991 at least as large as the previous year’s.

During his eight years in office, President G. W. Bush oversaw a large increase in government spending. In fact, President Bush increased government spending more than any of the six presidents preceding him, including LBJ. In his last term in office, President Bush increased discretionary outlays by an estimated 48.6 percent.

During his eight years in office, President Bush spent almost twice as much as his predecessor, President Clinton. Adjusted for inflation, in eight years, President Clinton increased the federal budget by 12.5 percent. In eight years, President Bush increased it by a whopping 53 percent.

One reason offered for these large budget increases is that entitlement programs are growing rapidly. Although Social Security and Medicare spending growth outpaced most other programs in the mid-1990s, spending growth in discretionary programs has accelerated in the last 15 years, especially during Bush’s two terms. Between FY2002 and FY2009, discretionary spending rose 96 percent.

Some argue that federal spending during the Bush years was so high because security needs drove up the budget. It is true that defense spending increased dramatically since the late-1990s, particularly since 9/11 and the beginning of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, nondefense spending increased too. Some also argue that much of the increase in nondefense spending stemmed from increases in homeland security spending. Whether this is true, the overall rapid rise of discretionary spending indicates that, here too, the administration and Congress made no trade-offs in the budget. If the administration and Congress wanted more security spending and wanted to be fiscally responsible, they should have found savings elsewhere in the budget.

What the Teapublican faction in all their economic ignorance don’t understand, however, is that the psychological effects of a default—or even a near default—on the US and global economy will prove significant. One does not have to wait for a complete default for that to happen.

The U.S. debt-ceiling debacle may have led China's Dagong Global Credit Rating to downgrade its U.S. sovereign debt rating, but analysts say it's unlikely to impact China's decision to hold Treasurys.

Debt default would cause irreparable damage to US credit.

Citigroup CFO John Gerspach said that the bank "remains hopeful" a deal can be worked out to avoid a default. But he added that "hope is not a plan" and that the bank has prepared for different contingencies over the past few weeks.

http://money.cnn.com/2013/10/15/investing/debt-default-doomsday/

Everybody who has debts has to pay something has been the assumption.

The US Debt is Fictitious

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2uKt_gTDa0

Massive National Debt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEROvkpV-Ro

Who Owns the National Debt?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7UoESptUNE

John Boehner:

About Fairness

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4dX0i5Nn68

[-] 2 points by JackHall (413) 10 years ago

Where is Mitt Romney?

If elected, Romney pledged to initiate 10 major actions on the first day of his presidency, consisting of five Bills and 5 Executive Orders, which are

5 Bills For Day One • The American Competitiveness Act Reduces the corporate income tax rate to 25%

• The Open Markets Act Implements Free Trade Agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea

• The Domestic Energy Act Directs the Department of the Interior to undertake a comprehensive energy review

• The Retraining Reform Act Consolidates federal retraining programs and return these programs to the states

• The Down Payment on Fiscal Sanity Act Immediately cuts non-security discretionary spending by 5 percent ($20 billion)

5 Executive Orders For Day One

An Order to Pave the Way to End Obamacare

• Secretary of Health and Human Services to return the maximum possible authority to the states An Order to Cut Red Tape

• All agencies to initiate the elimination of Obama-era regulations that burden the economy or job creation An Order to Boost Domestic Energy Production

• Department of the Interior to implement a process for rapid issuance of drilling permits to An Order to Sanction China for Unfair Trade Practices

• Department of the Treasury to list China as a currency manipulator and the Department of Commerce to assess countervailing duties on Chinese imports

An Order to Empower American Businesses and Workers

• Reverses the executive orders issued by President Obama that tilt the playing field in favor of organized labor

http://2012.republican-candidates.org/Romney/Economy.php

What is Romney doing?

Mitt Romney, businessman, is back in action. According to NBC News, the former presidential candidate and private equity baron has been hired by Solamere Capital, a Massachusetts-based PE firm co-founded and run by his son, Tagg. Romney has maintained an office at Solamere's Boston headquarters since November, but hasn't advised the company on its investments.

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2013/03/mitt-romney-now-employed-his-son/62832/

[-] 1 points by Crackpot (53) 9 years ago

Democratic leadership is also lacking. Where are our elder statesmen?

President and Mrs. Obama were in Dallas in April 2013 for the dedication of the George W. Bush Presidential Library. It was an historic occasion that brought all the living former Presidents -- Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush -- together for the first time since right before President Obama took office in 2009. They were joined by former First Ladies Roslyn Carter, Barbara Bush, Hillary Clinton (also a former Secretary of State, as President Obama noted) and Laura Bush.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/04/25/president-obama-participates-dedication-george-w-bush-presidential-library

http://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/photo/2013/05/president-obama-presidents-jimmy-carter-bill-clinton-and-george-w-bus

Bush Quotes 122

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yle-3IZqoPs&list=PL6F3F4A1AAE8B7933

The 9/11 collapse of WTC buildings has unanswered questions. The 2008 economic Meltdown is unresolved. Tax cuts for the rich didn’t trickle down. The war in Iraq War is not over. After $17 trillion who is better off?

Imagine you are on an ocean cruise and you see the captain of the ship climbing aboard a lifeboat. The captain is abandoning ship.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2614954/WATCH-The-moment-captain-sinking-South-Korean-ferry-abandoned-ship-UNDERPANTS-leaving-hundreds-die.html

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/francesco-schettino-castro-concordia-captain-lied-whined-abandoning-ship-transcript-article-1.1007436

http://occupywallst.org/forum/amnesty-international-calls-on-canada-to-arrest-bu/

http://occupywallst.org/forum/code-red-bush-blair-found-guilty-of-war-crimes-in-/

http://occupywallst.org/forum/this-country-our-citizens-should-have-known-or-the/

http://occupywallst.org/forum/doj-asks-court-to-grant-immunity-to-bush-cheney-ru/

http://occupywallst.org/forum/obama-refuses-to-prosecute-bush-for-his-war-crimes/

Obama is looking to the future. By not prosecuting Bush administration perpetrators of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars President Obama has locked himself and the successive US Presidents of the USA out of world leadership roles in the future. This is old crony politics at its worst.

[-] 1 points by MattHolck0 (3867) 9 years ago

war puppet presidents need libraries

no one would remember them otherwise

[-] 1 points by Crackpot (53) 9 years ago

Where is G.W now?

We need our elder statesmen.

We see Bill Clinton in the news. We see G.H.W. more often than we see G.W.. We see Jimmy Carter in the news occasionally.

Bushisms 211

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AioJbNL1JS8&list=PL2BEC5635A5CAAC8D