Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Sarah Palin for VP!

As a Cdn, I hope Palin doesn't get in.

Furthermore, on the issue of taxes, Obama promises a middle class tax cut, something that George Bush delivered but Bill Clinton reneged on.

Here's his tax cut. He wants to give tax credits to low income families who DON'T PAY ANY TAXES.

Leave it to a liberal to use the tax system to create a welfare program.

In other words, that middle class tax cut is in reality an increase in the tax burden on those who actually pay taxes and a welfare payment for those who don't.

This is a fascinating topic, if depressing for me.

For the record, I want to stress I was making a general comment about the misbehaviour of both fringes. Just making sure that's clear.

Reasonable voices exist on both sides--even a member of the leftist Kos, the root of all internet evil for right wingers (responsible for the pregnancy smear), comes down on mysogyny and classism in the blog.

I actually think I'm way more reasonable than them and more interested in civil discourse, but hey, that's bias for you.

My issues with perception is how easily is can be coopted by these fringe elements more than facts (a lot of these things have a basis in some fact--which all good lies do btw). In a perfect world, the media would present equally a candidates public persona, position, etc. But it doesn't. It expresses the salacious bits of each, which are the ones that stick.

I still remember the interviews in Pennsylvania where some people questioned whether Obama was a Christian (not to mention "regular" people in my hometown, which shocked me silly). This was after the media had debunked the claim that he's Muslim. The Palin situation as well if anything should show how quickly the mainstream media disseminates erroneous information. Hopefully, this situation will be put under wraps as well.

But given how fast information goes, I'm concerned about the sticking power of salacious rumor and circumstancial junk. I still think perception from the average outlets is not a rational basis on which to judge leadership. Maybe before it was. I've been thinking about this a lot because I've spent some time last week and this week, trying to keep facts straight and debunking junk from both the right and the left. A lot of what I found out debunked made it into the television outlets, not to mention the papers. Not to mention people waving around circumstatial junk as "facts." My question is--how many people have the luxury of time and the interest to navigate through this junk?

You're far more optimistic than I, Terry. Often, but not always. Maybe I feel that way because I'm on the opposite side of history (requisite bias claim), so to speak. There were a lot of mistakes done in the Kerry campaign, but I think the whole issue with his record, the unsubstatiated smears, affected people's decisions. No, I'm not saying it decided the election per se, but that it fed into an atmosphere where personality and character based on smears actually *mattered*. That coupled with the amount of air time and pages written devoted to trivial nonsense (An analysis Palin and McCain's hug on the Times!) this election cycle contributes to my pessimism on the importance of facts for all sides.

Re taxes:

This is not my area clearly, which is why I'd love for people to weigh in on (well politics as a whole is not my area ). I am for the democratic platform however, like Paul mentioned ages ago, I do think government should provide for those who need help, especially in this economy. I am perfectly aware of the smaller government approach and its pros (my whole fam leans to that), but it's not what I believe in.

More info:

Comparison of their approach to the economy from the Christian Science Monitor

Since this is not my area (and I've blathered enough), I'll let the AP\'s cited economists deal out the cons of McCain's economic plan to be fair on thread:

This plays with McCain's remark-- "the first big-spending pork-barrel earmark bill that comes across my desk, I will veto it"

The article has much more stuff on both, I encourage anyone to read it.

Factcheck says:

alcyone

Yes, I know you were referring to both fringes, and I'm sure reasonable sources on both sides are working hard to keep things untwisted. Didn't mean to suggest otherwise.

On this, Alcyone, I agree with you completely. It's kinda scary.

There seem to be a lot of people who believe that Gov. Palin wants creationism taught in schools (she doesn't), that she's a religious nut (she's not), that she tried to ban books from the Wasilla library (she didn't) -- there's a list going around the internet purporting to be all the books Palin wanted to ban; one hint that it's bogus is that some of the books on the list weren't even published at the time. Same with the "Obama is a Muslim" meme. This stuff is easily debunked, but it's showing up everywhere, even in formerly respectable news sources. The issues are worth looking into, but I'd like my news to be, you know, factual. :rolleyes:

But some people (both sides) grab on to the factoids that support their prejudices and ignore the rest. That's bad for democracy.

No, I agree you're much more reasonable and more interested in civil discourse than the Kwazy Kos Kids... but sadly, that ain't saying much. Still, it's good to know the occasional voice of sanity is heard there.

PJ

That is of course until he subconsciously mentions it himself. I mean, Lord have mercy, this man is trying to gain the trust of, at the very least, half the people in the country and he makes a flub like that?! Yes I know Dubya verbally fumbles, but at least his are funny.

I know this thread is supposed to be issues, and knowing the dem candidate has voted against gun ownership, and pro-abortion, I was never planning to vote for him, but I find it amusing to see how the left is accusing McCain of "Bush" similarity, when it's their candidate that resembles him more(at least speech flub-wise).

TEEEEEEEJ

Lol. I laughed in dismay as well, but being completely fair, McCain also flubbed big time with the houses comment.

Gaffes shouldn't matter as much as they do. Politicians are human, even if they are forced to pretend otherwise.

Well, I'll have to disagree with you here-- simply because Bush is in a league of his own. Based on what I've seen, he's way ahead of both McCain and Obama in terms of making up words and the like.

alcyone

SuperRoo wrote:

I wonder why.

Interesting, no?

I'm not an Obama fan at all [not a McCain fan either, btw, though I do like Palin so far because I can relate to her - I never entered beauty pageants to pay for college but I did pay for it myself, I have kids and know how to balance a budget, I respect that Todd has stayed home at times while she worked - something no one mentions when asking if she can do the job - he'll be a SAHD essentially if she's VP], but I'm willing to give him a pass on that one. It is a phrase that's common in Washington DC but it was a very stupid thing for him to say. Two weeks ago no one would have thought anything about it, but Palin has 'trademarked' the lipstick thing for the next couple months at least and there was no way that comment was going to be interpreted as anything but a slam on Palin and comparing her to a pig. The full quote *seems* to indicate something else when taken in the historical context of the phrase. McCain has used it a time or two as well.

The quote of the day for today [the lipstick one was yesterday] is coming from the South Carolina Dem Chair Carol Fowler who told Alex Burns that Palin's "primary qualification seems to be that she hasn’t had an abortion." [That's on politico.com - I don't know anything about it but DH said he heard an interview with that in it a little while ago - and it's been picked up a few other places already, too, and it's only an hour and a half old or so.] The critics of Palin harp that she's a FORMER small town mayor [in the interests of full disclosure, her town is only slightly smaller than mine] and forget that she's a sitting governor. And all governorships are not created equal. Vermont's governor, for instance, has very little power [that's Howard Dean's former job, btw, but no one criticized him for that - because it's an east coast Dem state? I don't know. It's a small state land wise so it seems more populous because everyone's closer together than they are in Alaska?]. Massachusett's governor has the most. Alaska's is tied for number two with a couple other states. That has nothing to do with the person holding the office but rather the state constitutional definitions of the office. So yes, Alaska's big in land mass and small in population [but bigger than Vermont and Wyoming] but has a governorship with a lot of power compared to most other states.

Anyway - I'm willing to give Obama a 'foot in mouth' pass on that one, but I think he might want to talk to some other Dems... Whether they agree with her on policy or not, Palin is so popular right now that attacking her on anything BUT policy is likely to backfire against Obama, whether he had any part in it or not. Even many of those who don't like her on policy won't take kindly to many of the other things being talked about. IMO.

Carol [who hits post with great trepidation]

I have no idea what Obama was thinking when he uttered that phrase, but his audience certainly made the immediate assumption he was talking about Palin. I've only heard the clip once, so I might be paraphrasing, but the crowd immediately started chanting something like "no pitbull!." There were also a number of surprised gasps from the crowd as a few understood the ramifications of his words.

As soon as Obama heard the crowd, even if he hadn't intended it to be a personal shot at Palin, he should have immediately corrected that impression. Anybody with an ounce of political sense would have immediately had their spidey sense tingling, knowing that he'd get into hot water with it.

You know, I heard that 'lipstick' comment on the radio this morning on the way to work and was horrified, thinking that it seemed to be a direct (and kinda sexist) attack on Palin of the sort that Obama himself was making a big deal of keeping out of politics.

Then I read about it on CNN and, while I don't take CNN (or any new site) as gospel truth in reporting of any matters, especially political, I discovered that the 'lipstick on a pig' phrase has been around for quite a while - and, in fact, was used by both McCain and Obama in the last year. Mike Huckabee apparently said that he knows what it's like to be on a podium and use a phrase that's in reasonably common parlance, only to find later that it's being interpreted differently because of some current context. Now, I don't know what was in Obama's mind when he said it, and I'd love to see him acknowledge that it was open to misinterpretation, but it's clearly not as straightforward as it was being reported this morning.

The CNN story I read has been edited to add more information since I looked at it, but the Huckabee remarks are still in there, as are the examples of the phrase as used by McCain and Obama previously. It's at least possible that Obama didn't mean it as a direct dig at Palin.


Wendy

I don't know either whether he meant it as a direct insult or not, but the other times the phrase was used was before Sarah Palin essentially appropriated the word, "lipstick," for herself. Or pitbull too.

It's a common phrase in America and everyone knows what it means. Using it now is a big no-no, though.

It's all in the timing of when you use it. When McCain used it, for instance, he was referring to Hillary Clinton's universal health care plan, long before most people had ever heard the hockey mom/pitbull joke or had ever heard of Palin. Using the word, lipstick, from here on out will always be taken as a reference to Palin.

If McCain wins the election, people may point back to this incident and say that this was Obama's equivalent of Michael Dukakis riding around in the tank, John Kerry's "Reporting for duty," or Howard Dean's scream.

This is one of those situations where the context matters.

Palin's line about "lipstick on a pitbull" was one of those bits that was all over the media for a few days following her speech. Obama had to be aware of it. Consequently his use of the expression took on a new dimension when he used it yesterday.

Was his use of the phrase deliberate? I don't think anyone can ever know that outside that small backroom that all politicians hang out in.

My thought is that it was a Freudian slip.

Interesting how the media is covering it. Have just watched Charles Gibson's news cast and they showed the clip, inlcuding the earlier part of Obama's speech which was a general attack on McCain's platform. But the interesting thing was that the clip had been edited - you could clearly hear that blip thing that let us know they'd cut part of the speech that preceded the "lipstick" statement. So I came away understanding no more about the comment than I had before, but wondering why the broadcaster edited it in the way I've described.

Now to go off topic - it's the huge, wacking US deficit I'd like to hear the candidates address and the media explore more directly and specifically.

c. (who lives in a tiny, in population terms, country where when the US sneezes we get a cold. (origin of that quote???)

c.

Weighing in from the other side, this has been massively overblown. Especially when there's vast evidence that it's a stock phrase . Slate looks at a dictionary. Then at the phrases resurgence in the 90s.

The whole quote is this for anyone who has only been exposed to the phrase:

Youtube-whole remarks . (Wonderful title by one of the trigger happy hordes).

To add to the cnn article Wendy posted:

Obama has used the phrase before Palin was in the race last September to decribe the situation in Iraq, see here , along with other examples of people in politics using it.

Further, McCain himself has has used the phrase before. Article from '07.

Media Matters checks up on the original article that started the storm with links to corroborate.

I think this gives anyone a much more rounded perspective than her speech line--his line--"hmmm," which is what's circulating (I know because I see only the line quoted in the papers--I bet TV is the same). Anyway, judge for yourself.

So now all Dems need to clean out their vocab of key Palin words? You know, that wouldn't be a problem-- if it weren't with the inherent contradiction in Republicans and their attack against "political correctness" (which is understandable considering that when it comes to accidentally blasting minorities, women and LGBT, so many of them put their foot in their mouths--latest example being Westmoreland with "uppity." --the article defends him) and victim narratives (see Palin clip). It's an amazing turn around to be so sensitive now. When others do it, it's offensive, when one does it its an honest mistake.

There's just no way to reason or have any sort of fair exchange.

Just because these people thought of Palin doesn't magically mean he's refering to her. Especially in context of policy and the fact that it's something so widely used. That's like attributing Kos' smears to Obama's campaign, which would be...inaccurate (to say the least I'm keeping myself in check). Otherwise we launch into conspiracy theories and reason dies again.

Are smears and misinformation, a perpetual onslaught of he said/she saids and who meant what going to decide this election? Petty fighting over rank stupidity? No, wait. Don't answer that. I know. I know.

alcyone

It's possible that one of the reasons why the part of the speech before the lipstick comment was edited was because it would have caused another scandal for Obama.

He plagiarized a Washington Post cartoon in an attack on McCain/Palin and failed to attribute the comment to the original author.

Here is the part that was left out before the comment:

Here's the original cartoon by Tom Toles of the Washington Post:




I guess Joe Biden does have an influence on him.

Remember that Joe Biden was forced to quit the presidential race in 1988 when he was forced to admit plagiarizing a source in a Law Review article and was using lines from former British Labour Leader Neil Kinnock in his speeches without attribution.

EDIT: cleaned up some misspellings in the original quote I got it from.

I don't think anyone is saying that the phrase is not a stock phrase. That's not the point. (although I'd never heard it before - is it one of those regional things?)

Interesting cartoon, Roger.

It's unfortunate, but one of the characteristics of this campaign, including the primaries, has been the parsing of one side's language by his/her opponents. Phrases have been taken out of context and interpreted in ways that were harmful. All the candidates have done this, Obama included.

But this has probably been true of most election campaigns in the past, too.

But what is different this time out is the immediacy with which these things get whirled around the internet, and in the process get distorted and blown out of proportion. As well, what's also different is that the mainstream media is giving these incidents such huge play compared to the past.

Issues anyone?

c.

Just to clarify, I was never only making a point that the lipstick remarks were a stock phrase. Rather that the combination of evidence presents more ambiguity than certainty. Either you give the benefit of the doubt upon knowing the cluster of facts or not. But certainly any conclusion would be uninformed without knowing the remarks without the context of it being a stock phrase and the full excerpt at the very least IMO.

In short, the best conclusion rests on hearing as much as one can was my point. (Although this is just my rationalization for linkage-induced therapy :rolleyes: ) I was not responding to anyone specifically at that point

Re: cartoon controversy. Reportedly, a friend told Obama about it without him (the friend) knowing where it was from. When Obama learned Tom Noles did it, he attributed it. Maybe it was an accident, maybe it wasn't.

Ticker thing here .

Naturally, it's all over right wing blogs and heh, Fox. The RNC already blasted an email like its Christmas come early.

alcyone (bias moment: I will avoid ranting on the fact deficit of McCain's ads, I am well aware both campaign ads twist junk--but the education one makes particularly atrocious insinuations)

Alcyone - you're right on the Education ad [the sex ed for Kindergarteners one is the one I imagine you're referring to]. The 'cut funding for special ed' attacks against Palin are BS too [though I haven't seen an AD, I have seen it reported].

Most of the media coverage I've seen of the lipstick thing has pointed out that it's a pretty common statement in DC. Palin has used the pitbull statement before [and I've heard it elsewhere - it's a pretty common hockey mom joke and I think I've heard it with something besides hockey mom too] so it's not like she was taking Obama's lipstick/pig statement. SHOULD Obama be allowed to make a statement like that without the crazy repercussions of the last couple of days? Yeah. But the reality is that the lipstick thing has become SO associated with Palin - right, wrong or otherwise - that he really can't without it turning into a 'thing'. And the pitbull comment wasn't in her speech - it was off the cuff while her teleprompter wasn't working and in response to someone in the crowd [or a sign or something, I forget exactly].

I did see the cartoon thing and the article I read said that Obama used it, was contacted by the newspaper/magazine/whatever, used it again, used it and credited it to a cartoon, then used it again with no credit. Whether or not all that counts as being credited... not a clue.

As for the uppity thing... I never knew that it was a derogatory term until this week. I've used it and certainly never meant anything racist by it at all. I'd heard the term 'uppity n****r' when watching... Tuskegee Airmen I think but didn't realize that 'uppity' was part of the slur. I'd always heard it in this sense: snobbish, arrogant, or presumptuous [freedictionary.com definition] and would not have made the association. I didn't read the article you linked, but I would imagine Westmoreland was the same way, give him the benefit of the doubt just like I did Obama on the lipstick thing - SHOULD Westmoreland have known? No clue.

I think there was something else I was going to say but I've not got a clue what it was.

Both sides are making mountains out of molehills and not really addressing what they need to - what are they going to do about the deficit, the war, Iran, N. Korea [who really is running the show over there?], my taxes because I pay too much as it is, etc.

Carol

Okay, let's talk more issues.

Let's talk about Iraq. We've basically won. If Obama had his way, we would have lost since he opposed the Surge. And months after the Surge, he refused to admit that he was wrong and that victory is at hand. Things are going so much better that Iraq's basically disappeared off the front pages. If it doesn't bleed, it doesn't lead.

McCain, on the other hand, advocated the sending of additional forces into Iraq and the change in the mission, even though it was deemed unpopular at the time. He was right about it. No Democrat gives him credit for being right. Nor does President Bush get any credit for winning the war or preventing all attacks on American soil for the last seven years.

According to Bob Woodward, it seems that General George Casey had been the one most adamantly opposed to having additional forces and was replaced by General Petraeus, who was given what the always-wrong New York Times claimed was an impossible mission. Once Casey was gone, Petraeus then proceeded to implement a two-prong strategy. First additional forces went into the most troubled areas of Baghdad and the Ambar Province. The second was to make alliances with the new Sunni Awakening movement, which represented former al Qaeda allies who were tired of al Qaeda's tactics of murdering Iraqi civilians. Instead, they turned against al Qaeda and allied with us. With their help, we were able to root out al Qaeda hiding places and kill or capture many of their leaders.

With the two-part strategy executed, Iraq has basically been won and al Qaeda decimated by two-thirds. A captured letter on an al Qaeda courier sent by Ayman al-Zawahiri (al Qaeda's #2, bin Laden's deputy) was found showing Zawahiri's anger at the incompetence of al Qaeda in Iraq and berating them for poor strategy and the inability to stand up to the Americans. The letter also said that recruitment was down significantly. al Qaeda knows it's facing imminent defeat.

So with al Qaeda on the run and nearly destroyed, Obama still claimed that the Surge was a bad idea. It was in an interview with Bill O'Reilly just last week where he finally admitted that it had succeeded beyond anyone's expectations after repeated questioning. He was wrong in one respect. McCain and Bush both had expectations that it would work and they had the courage to do what was needed to win.

Since President Bush's global strategy was to occupy al Qaeda and destroy them in foreign battlefields rather than facing them on our own soil, I'd say it's worked pretty well with very light losses when compared to every war America has ever fought, except the original Gulf War in 1990.

Today America is much safer with al Qaeda demoralized and on the run. And there have been no attacks on US soil in seven years, not for the lack of trying.

Anyone notice on the back pages of the newspaper that last week, the once deadly and now peaceful Ambar province has been turned over to the Iraqis? Eleven of the seventeen provinces have now been turned over to Iraqi control. And by next spring, coalition forces will return to their bases outside the cities and will turn to a passive mission of training and supporting the Iraqi military and police. As President Bush has stated many times, when the Iraqis stand up, we'll stand down. That's exactly what's happening.

McCain, at the risk of his own political defeat, championed an unpopular cause and along with Joe Lieberman and President Bush, gave our forces what was necessary to win. Obama would not and neither would Joe Biden, who also voted against the Surge. Both were dead wrong.

Does anyone believe that Obama would have the courage to commit US forces into combat under any circumstance? His first instinct is withdrawal and defeat. There is something to what Palin said when the word, "victory," never passes his lips except when it's about winning an election. If Obama had been in charge, our soldiers would be coming home in defeat, al Qaeda would have been emboldened and would be using Iraq as a base to attack its neighbors and our allies, and those friendly to our country in the Middle East would be cowed. Israel would be further endangered. Instead we have a Muslim democracy in the heart of the Middle East that puts a dagger into al Qaeda's hopes of controlling the region. Even the now dead Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (first leader of al Qaeda in Iraq) knew it. In another captured letter about four years ago, Zarqawi basically admitted that their cause would be almost impossible to sustain if America were to win in Iraq as democracy is the enemy of their cause. That's why al Qaeda has fought us so hard in Iraq.

For his lack of judgment in the vital area of national security and his refusal to acknowledge success in Iraq, Obama should not receive a single vote, as the president's first responsibility is to keep his country safe since he can't be trusted to take on the hard jobs. In the middle of a war, there is no more important issue. Ironically, President Bush's successes in the War on Terror have left him with a population that has essentially forgotten about the dangers presented by our enemies. Like Harry Truman, who had equally poor approval ratings, history will judge him far better than the current electorate.

As for Obama, I find it appalling that a man campaigning for our defeat even has a chance of being elected to the presidency. The thought that a President Obama would be commanding our forces in Afghanistan is absolutely frightening, knowing he wouldn't have the fortitude or the desire to win. Does anyone believe that McCain doesn't have the intestinal fortitude and ability to successfully prosecute the war?

Now, on to the deficit. Isn't it funny how the deficit goes up during times of economic distress and goes down during the good times?

Right after the dot com bust, the economy began to worsen as hundreds of companies folded and thousands lost their jobs. Revenues immediately started to go down. It didn't matter who was the president at the time but the deficit was bound to go up.

The solution is to get the economy going again. Obama has already admitted that raising taxes during a recession would only damage the economy and is considering postponing his tax increases on the wealthy. Hallelujah! He's admitting that his plan doesn't help the economy. And since the only way to reduce the deficit is to get the economy going again, what's the best way to do that?

The worst thing you can do is to raise the capital gains tax rate, as Obama will still do. Not only does it dry up investment, an important component of Gross Domestic Product (C + I + G = GDP), but it hits almost everyone. These days, there is hardly anyone who doesn't own some sort of security, whether it's a mutual fund, a stock or two, or a bond. The capital gains tax increase would severely damage the economy further.

Note that I'm about to praise Bill Clinton, so don't fall over now. Even Clinton, the pragmatist, understood that capital gains are the keys to investment and therefore economic growth. Along with the Republican Congress, Clinton passed a capital gains tax cut from the maximum 28% to 15%. That resulted in an enormous surge in revenues and a large drop in unemployment, a large contributor to our balancing the budget in the latter years of the Clinton Administration. Back then, the GOP Congress were still real Republicans and restrained spending, unlike what they did when they got power hungry several years later.

John McCain advocates maintaining all of President Bush's tax cuts, including the capital gains cut down to 10%, except for the death tax which he would raise to 15% (Obama advocates returning the death tax to 55%). Even at 10%, our capital gains tax rate is the highest in the industrialized world. Even socialist France has only a 5% capital gains rate. So right off the bat, American companies are operating at a disadvantage, tax-wise.

Obama advocates economy-killing tax increases in the capital gains rate. Every time the rate has been cut, revenue has increased. Every time the rate has been raised, revenue goes down. Why? Because companies perform a cost-benefit analysis. If the return on investment (ROI) is high enough, a company will spend the funds necessary. If it isn't, investment doesn't happen. Taxes are a huge part of the ROI calculation. So that's why revenue moves the opposite direction to the capital gains rate.

So how does this work to reduce the deficit? You reduce it by stoking the economy so that companies are willing to invest and hire again. Once the economy starts working again, the deficit will once again begin to go down.

The other component to deficits is spending. Republicans spent like drunken sailors in the four years they had control of Congress. For that, they earned the wrath of Republican voters, who turned out in large numbers in 2006 to vote for... Democrats in retaliation.

Democrats, encouraged by Republican retirements and the unpopularity of President Bush, are salivating to start spending like drunken sailors themselves since they are almost guaranteed control of both houses of Congress in the 2008 elections despite their 17% approval rating, far lower than Bush's. Chief among them is Barack Obama, who earned the impartial National Journal's rating as the most liberal Senator in Washington. His partner in crime, Joe Biden, was rated as #3 most liberal. Ironically, Hillary Clinton was rated as more conservative than either one of them, despite her reputation for liberalism.

Obama has promised everything under the sun and has spending plans of at least $1 trillion in additional monies. Along with an economy-killing tax increase and $1 trillion in more spending, can anyone guess where the deficit is going to go? Yep, straight up.

McCain has been more vague about what he wants to do. He has promised spending cuts but hasn't really indicated what he plans to cut outside of generalities like "unnecessary spending." He has said he will veto any bill with earmarks, but that adds up to only $16.9 billion in last year's budget according to the CBO. That will make a small dent but will hardly solve the problem.

One thing he has not done is to promise large amounts of additional spending. That is very encouraging in that at least the spending component won't go up nearly as fast as it would under Obama and a Democratic Congress.

So why do we have a huge deficit now? Part of it is the War on Terror. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the rest of the hidden war have easily cost us billions each year. We can argue about whether it was necessary spending or warranted spending but the spending on those wars will continue. Iraq's cost will go down while Afghanistan's will likely go up no matter who is president unless Obama decides to surrender.

The rest of it has to do with the popping of the real estate bubble and its resulting financial crisis. How did we get in that mess to begin with, I hear you ask?

First of all, economies have upturns and downturns because people always do things to excess. Upturns are caused by bubbles. Downturns happen when they burst. If people didn't behave that way, we would have consistent growth as far as the eye can see. But it doesn't happen that way.

What about these bubbles? Starting in recent times around 1986 was the S&L bubble in commercial real estate. Government was actually to blame for that bubble in the first place. Tax loopholes made it beneficial for S&L's (savings and loans) to invest in commercial real estate, regardless of demand. Anyone remember all those empty office buildings, yet they still kept being built?

Well, the Tax Simplification Act put together by Dan Rostenkowski (D-IL) and Bob Packwood (R-OR) and signed by President Reagan moved the top marginal rate from 50% to 28% but was revenue neutral by eliminating a myriad of tax loopholes. You can probably see where this is going. The removal of the tax loophole caused a financial crisis as all the investments in commercial real estate dried up and the S&L crisis happened. The economy promptly went into recession and was further exacerbated by the ill-timed $500 billion tax increase agreed to by President George HW Bush and the Democratic Congress who threatened shutdowns without the tax increase.

In came Bill Clinton and the "worst economy of the last 50 years." It was hardly such but people believed it. Ironically, the economy had already begun to recover by the time Bill Clinton came on the scene to win the White House. The fourth quarter of 1992 grew at nearly a 5% rate. Yet the press continued to make us believe the economy was a disaster to help Clinton win.

Clinton, faced with a budget deficit, raised taxes retroactively and nearly killed the economy again. The economy went into neutral, reversing the growth in 4Q 1992 with only a 0.7% growth in the next quarter. Those who claimed Clinton's tax increase saved the economy were wrong. It was the dot com bubble and the rise of the Internet that saved it. That lasted for nearly a decade as companies' stocks went up without any revenue to speak of.

In 2000, the bubble burst as all bubbles do eventually. The NASDAQ fell from a high of over 5,000 to about 1,500. Even today, it is nowhere near its original high. Trillions of dollars were lost and the economy began to tank.

Enter George W. Bush. His tax cuts got things going again, partly avoiding a recession. But then 9/11 happened and the transportation industry practically collapsed and the economy began to dive again. 1 million jobs were lost in two months. Naturally, the deficit began to rise again to over $400 billion.

Fortunately additional tax cuts got us out of the hole and the economy began growing again with the deficit falling in half in only a few short years. So even with the spending on the War on Terror and tax cuts, somehow the deficit fell by half. How can that be? That's because the economy was growing.

Unfortunately, following the bursting of the dot com bubble, another bubble began to form, this time in real estate again. A second, minor bubble also began forming in commodities. In California, real estate was particularly crazy. Homes that normally sold for $200,000 were selling in just a few years for $600,000. Homes that would normally go for $400,000 were now exceeding $1 million.

How did this bubble form? First of all, money is always present so it has to go somewhere. The stock market had just taken an enormous beating, so the money went to real estate. Government again was at fault. First the Federal Reserve, in fighting 9/11-induced problems, reduced real interest rates to negative values. That led to increased home demand, further exacerbated by cheap money, readily supplied by banks and other financial institutions. Even worse, the government was backing up the banks in case things went wrong with institutions like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which would buy many of these poorly performing mortgages. So along with nearly free loans and the riskless aspect of federal insurance, banks lent money they otherwise would not.

As with all bubbles, the real estate bubble burst when the Fed raised interest rates again. Banks began to fail, credit began to tighten in the sub-prime mortgage market, and people could no longer afford their adjustable-rate mortgages. That is the cause of our economic downturn today and the huge increase in the federal deficit. The best thing government could do would be to slash the corporate income tax rates and the capital gains rate even further. But with Democrats in charge of Congress, President Bush's hands are essentially tied. There's not much he can do and he doesn't have the political capital left to promote a tax cut. Tax cuts to Democrats is like sunlight is to Dracula.

If the government can do just two things, control spending and not raise taxes, the economy will eventually sort itself out and the deficit will fall in time.

The Obama plan would do neither and would worsen our recession. I'm not sure what the McCain plan will do without more specifics but if he promises not to raise taxes, that will go a long way to reducing the deficit. McCain has promised a cut in the corporate tax rate. That will help considerably.

P.S. You may have guessed I'm handicapped with an economics degree.

The national debt stands at about $9.7 trillion and increases by about $2 billion a day. But no one seems eager to talk about how we're going to pay that off. Of course, that's not particularly surprising - politicians have a knack for avoiding candid discussions about difficult issues, and the public at large has a knack for withdrawing support for candidates that dare to honestly tell people what they need to hear. Whatever the issue, it's much easier to placate the masses with a quick sound bite that offers the illusion of a simple fix. As I remind my students, each presidential candidate can talk about whatever ideas he wants to, but as president, he will not have the Constitutional power to enact any of those plans. Voters need to focus some attention on members of Congress - they are the ones with the power to make real changes in the policies of our country.