• If you are having problems logging in please use the Contact Us in the lower right hand corner of the forum page for assistance.

Big Government Conservatives

Help Support Ranchers.net:

A

Anonymous

Guest
Interesting editorial in the Washington Post-Be interesting to see how many of these PORK issues were our tax dollars being used to buy a yes vote on CAFTA- and all this money floating around and they can't seem to find enough to hire border patrolmen and shut down the illegals problem :???: :wink:

Big-Government Conservatives


Monday, August 15, 2005; Page A14

THREE TIMES in the past quarter-century, conservative leaders have promised to restrain wasteful government spending. President Ronald Reagan tried it and showed he was at least half-serious by vetoing the pork-laden 1987 transportation bill. House Speaker Newt Gingrich tried it and risked his party's electoral standing by battling to restrain the growth in programs such as Medicare. And President Bush has tried it, declaring on numerous occasions that he expected spending restraint from Congress. None of these efforts proved politically sustainable. As The Post's Jonathan Weisman and Jim VandeHei reported Thursday, Mr. Bush's attempt at spending discipline has been especially limp.

Back in 1987, when Mr. Reagan applied his veto to what was generally known at the time as the highway and mass transit bill, he was offended by the 152 earmarks for pet projects favored by members of Congress. But on Wednesday Mr. Bush signed a transportation bill containing no fewer than 6,371 earmarks. Each one of these, as Mr. Reagan understood but Mr. Bush apparently doesn't, amounts to a conscious decision to waste taxpayers' dollars. One point of an earmark is to direct money to a project that would not receive money as a result of rational judgments based on cost-benefit analyses.


Mr. Bush, who had threatened to veto wasteful spending bills, chose instead to cave in. He did so despite the fact that in addition to a record number of earmarks the transportation bill came with a price tag that he had once called unacceptable. The bill has a declared cost of $286 billion over five years plus a concealed cost of a further $9 billion; Mr. Bush had earlier drawn a line in the sand at $256 billion, then drawn another line at $284 billion. Asked to explain the president's capitulation, a White House spokesman pleaded that at least this law would be less costly than the 2003 Medicare reform. This is a classic case of defining deviancy down.

The nation is at war. It faces large expenses for homeland security. It is about to go through a demographic transition that will strain important entitlement programs. How can this president -- an allegedly conservative president -- believe that the federal government should spend money on the Red River National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center in Louisiana? Or on the Henry Ford Museum in Michigan? The bill Mr. Bush has signed devotes more than $24 billion to such earmarked projects, continuing a trend in which the use of earmarks has spread steadily each year. Remember, Republicans control the Senate and the House as well as the White House. So somebody remind us: Which is the party of big government?


[/b]
 
Soapweed said:
Boy, that was a slap in the face, Oldtimer, if Disagreeable says, "good post." :wink:

Yeah Soap, but the scarey thing is I'm hearing more and more of the same from so many others....I live in a conservative area- Dems and Repubs split pretty even, votes can go either way- but never toward a real liberal....Last couple of President and congressional elections went heavy republican, but last year in a backlash to a questionable job by a Republican governor they went heavy Democrat.....

With that background in mind-- I am now hearing a very heavy backlash against the current administration- not much because of the war. but mainly the economy and the lack of confidence in where we are headed....In an area where NAFTA killed us, the new CAFTA was little supported- then with almost non-existent grain prices, cattle prices and futures dropping since the opening of the border, increased shipping costs, and the daily increase of fuel costs, I hear many blaming it on the Big Business backing of the current administration and Republicans... My fear is that what I hear around here may be spreading nationwide- and open the door for Hilary to walk in :cry: :mad:
 
Oldtimer said:
Soapweed said:
Boy, that was a slap in the face, Oldtimer, if Disagreeable says, "good post." :wink:

Yeah Soap, but the scarey thing is I'm hearing more and more of the same from so many others....I live in a conservative area- Dems and Repubs split pretty even, votes can go either way- but never toward a real liberal....Last couple of President and congressional elections went heavy republican, but last year in a backlash to a questionable job by a Republican governor they went heavy Democrat.....

With that background in mind-- I am now hearing a very heavy backlash against the current administration- not much because of the war. but mainly the economy and the lack of confidence in where we are headed....In an area where NAFTA killed us, the new CAFTA was little supported- then with almost non-existent grain prices, cattle prices and futures dropping since the opening of the border, increased shipping costs, and the daily increase of fuel costs, I hear many blaming it on the Big Business backing of the current administration and Republicans... My fear is that what I hear around here may be spreading nationwide- and open the door for Hilary to walk in :cry: :mad:



Oldtimer it wasn't all NAFTA that killed you. Try CRP, it allowed all theat land to be idled young people couldn't get a start and your towns died.
 
Big Muddy rancher said:
Oldtimer said:
Soapweed said:
Boy, that was a slap in the face, Oldtimer, if Disagreeable says, "good post." :wink:

Yeah Soap, but the scarey thing is I'm hearing more and more of the same from so many others....I live in a conservative area- Dems and Repubs split pretty even, votes can go either way- but never toward a real liberal....Last couple of President and congressional elections went heavy republican, but last year in a backlash to a questionable job by a Republican governor they went heavy Democrat.....

With that background in mind-- I am now hearing a very heavy backlash against the current administration- not much because of the war. but mainly the economy and the lack of confidence in where we are headed....In an area where NAFTA killed us, the new CAFTA was little supported- then with almost non-existent grain prices, cattle prices and futures dropping since the opening of the border, increased shipping costs, and the daily increase of fuel costs, I hear many blaming it on the Big Business backing of the current administration and Republicans... My fear is that what I hear around here may be spreading nationwide- and open the door for Hilary to walk in :cry: :mad:



Oldtimer it wasn't all NAFTA that killed you. Try CRP, it allowed all theat land to be idled young people couldn't get a start and your towns died.


I will agree that CRP hurt just as bad as NAFTA- but when NAFTA hit the rest of the local work for the young people went- Only now starting to see the oil and gas exploration come back--even a few companies out there now signing up leases again...
 
So what did NAFTA have to do with the oil boom fading? IT was slow in this country as well.

You make a blanket statement that NAFTA killed your country but don't think about all the other factors. Even the prolonged crought hasn't helped much. No one thing did this to the Ag Community.
 
Big Muddy rancher said:
So what did NAFTA have to do with the oil boom fading? IT was slow in this country as well.

You make a blanket statement that NAFTA killed your country but don't think about all the other factors. Even the prolonged crought hasn't helped much. No one thing did this to the Ag Community.

Oil became much cheaper and easier to get in Alberta- they just shut the pumps down- many of the fields that were still producing good shut down- everything moved north... Lumber mills shut down- Canada, without all the green restrictions, offered much cheaper lumber. Then there are the $20 cull cows........Then with the trickle down theory it went into all services and business's--Definitely did nothing to help the states economy...

But now oil is getting precious enough again- Rumor is that their are over 500 jobs available in the Basin fields .....At least something good about the oil prices...BNSF is definitely getting more business- the kid has been working running coal trains between Glendive and Forsyth- can work about as much as he wants as they are really short handed- easily makes $5000 month- $8000+ if he doesn't take any days off.......
 

Latest posts

Top