Journal neocon's Journal: Morning in America ;-) 2
Now, on to passing a budget, clearing the Daschle-created backlog of judicial appointees, and making the Bush tax-cut permanent.
Also worth noting, as pointed out by Mark Levin in National Review Online:
The Democrats just blew the best chance they had to keep control of the Senate for the next six years. The reason is that there were 34 Senate seats in play yesterday - 20 held by the GOP and 14 by the Democrats. The Republicans not only protected 20 seats, but now control the Senate. In 2004, the Republicans will only need to defend 15 seats, while the Democrats will have 19 seats in play. In 2006, the Republicans will defend 16 seats, the Democrats 17 (18 if you include Jim Jeffords).
and from David Horowitz, in the same column:
It was a big night for Republicans; much bigger than the media is admitting. The first Republican governor in Georgia in more than 100 years; the first Republican governor in Maryland in 38 years (against a Kennedy); a decisive shift in Florida to the Bush camp; only the fourth time in history a triumphant presidential party has gained House seats in the first midterm elections, and possibly the first time in history a presidential party has gained seats in the Senate (it's too early at this writing to be certain). And all this in a bad economic year.
The American people have spoken, and they have spoken in favor of President Bush.
Conflicting goals (Score:1)
That second item there is going to make that first item a bit of a bugger to handle.
Oh no wait, I forgot, just cut social security and education, good ol' republican planning.
Re:Conflicting goals (Score:2)
Not really.
As JFK understood when he passed his tax cut, raising taxes is almost never the best way to get more money for the government.
Why? Well, raising taxes hurts the economy so much that you end up collecting a larger percentage of a smaller pool of income. Lower taxes some, however, especially those taxes which discourage investment, such as income and capital gains taxes, and you stimulate the economy, and end up with more money, as you collect a smaller percentage of a larger tax-base.
There's even a name for this phenomenon -- it's called the Laffer Curve, after Kennedy's economic advisor, Arthur Laffer, and it has successfully predicted the behavior of the economy after both Kennedy's and Reagan's tax cuts, and the effects of Johnson's, Nixon's, and Bush Sr.'s tax hikes.
Economics is not a zero-sum game, and treating it as if it were is almost always disastrous -- just ask Jimmy Carter.