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Thread: Fiscal Conservatives my ass! The inauguration fiasco...

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    God/dess NinaDaisy's Avatar
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    Angry Fiscal Conservatives my ass! The inauguration fiasco...

    Okay, so aren't Republicans supposed to be fiscally conservative as opposed to us big bad "tax and spend" Democrats?

    So what the hell is up with Bush's latest financial fiasco of passing on TEN MILLION PLUS of the Inauguration costs to the city of Washington, D.C., where his percentage of votes won was in the single digits?

    Why isn't Kenny Boy Lay paying for this? I assume he still has plenty of money after fleecing the receptionists at Enron out of their life savings and still not being held accountable for it.

    There is already $40 million in the Inaugural coffers, so why make the taxpayers pay even more when D.C. schools are war zones and the charity hospital is in constant danger of closing due to underfunding?

    Isn't fiscal conservatism supposed to be a major tenet of the GOP? Or is this just something else that the neocons have chosen to stick their head in the sand about and be intentionally obtuse?
    "She has written so well, and marvellously well, that I was completely ashamed of myself as a writer...But this girl, who is to my knowledge very unpleasant and we might even say a high-grade bitch, can write rings around all of us who consider ourselves as writers"

    Ernest Hemingway on writer, aviation pioneer and horse trainer Beryl Markham


  2. #2
    madmaxine
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    Default Re: Fiscal Conservatives my ass! The inauguration fiasco...

    Let them hang themselves with a Very Nice Looking rope ; P
    It's bluster and bluffing. Like h*ll Bush wants to look chastened. He had to fight for his win- half of the country is severely disgruntled with him, and even the FARC (Columbian commies) wanted to "twist his cap back". You gotta be a big pain in the a** for those muthas to sneak out of the jungle and come for you!

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    Banned Melonie's Avatar
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    Default Re: Fiscal Conservatives my ass! The inauguration fiasco...

    So what the hell is up with Bush's latest financial fiasco of passing on TEN MILLION PLUS of the Inauguration costs to the city of Washington, D.C., where his percentage of votes won was in the single digits?
    Actually, DC is only being expected to spend some of the 240 million dollars in Homeland Security funds which it has ALREADY received and not needed to spend as the result of a 'formula' enacted in 2002 (i.e. a democratically controlled senate). New York must spend hundreds of millions of its own state funds for providing security every day because the same 'formula' doesn't provide nearly enough to secure the UN, corporate headquarters etc. The problem lies with the 'formula' which is based on population rather than relative security needs.

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    Default Re: Fiscal Conservatives my ass! The inauguration fiasco...

    Quote Originally Posted by NinaDaisy
    There is already $40 million in the Inaugural coffers, so why make the taxpayers pay even more when D.C. schools are war zones and the charity hospital is in constant danger of closing due to underfunding?
    $40 million. That will be one hell of a "Congrats-on-keeping-your-job" party...

    Seriously, why that much money?



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    God/dess threlayer's Avatar
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    Default Re: Fiscal Conservatives my ass! The inauguration fiasco...

    Quote Originally Posted by NinaDaisy
    Okay, so aren't Republicans supposed to be fiscally conservative as opposed to us big bad "tax and spend" Democrats?
    Isn't fiscal conservatism supposed to be a major tenet of the GOP? Or is this just something else that the neocons have chosen to stick their head in the sand about and be intentionally obtuse?
    Well, there you have it. Republicans are really the big spenders, just that they spend it for business interests, not individual taxpayer interests. Somewhere in the 80s under Reagan, Republicans forgot their frugal tenets and they haven't stopped yet.

    Now that security is understandably a much larger issue, I'm very surprised that the whole inaugural thing wasn't contracted out to Bechtel or Halliburton or somesuch. However that is only one expenditure. Just watch for all the others. In the last term of this administration with no voters to please, only the party (next candidate) and a Republican Congress, it will be interesting to watch and criticize how much more pork-barrel rools off Capitol Hill.

    Note how Bush is paring down his sphere of influence to those having very similar opinions as his. Likely IMO the only thing stopping this puppet President now is the control of the real people behind the scenes who will have the same influences as does Bush and have the party's interest more in mind.
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  6. #6
    Jay Zeno
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    Default Re: Fiscal Conservatives my ass! The inauguration fiasco...

    I'm not sure, but I think Clinton's inauguration festivities in 1996 cost about $30 million.

    We've come a long way since Thomas Jefferson walked to his inauguration. An excerpt from Jefferson's inaugural address, over 200 years ago, has some haunting messages for us today:

    "Let us, then, fellow citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions.

    "During the throes and convulsions of the ancient world, during the agonizing spasms of infuriated man, seeking through blood and slaughter his long-lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the agitation of the billows should reach even this distant and peaceful shore; that this should be more felt and feared by some and less by others, and should divide opinions as to measures of safety. But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle.

    "We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it"

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    Default Re: Fiscal Conservatives my ass! The inauguration fiasco...

    Yes it is true , Clintons was approx 30 Mil.-- but I will point out that the economy was doing very well at the time, unlike today where we have a record high deficit.

    I think more both numbers are out of control for a pat on the back party.... but I can't help but note the lack in logic in having a party that cost over 10 mil dollars more in wartime and during the highest deficit EVER.

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    God/dess NinaDaisy's Avatar
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    Default Re: Fiscal Conservatives my ass! The inauguration fiasco...

    Quote Originally Posted by Tigerlilly
    Yes it is true , Clintons was approx 30 Mil.-- but I will point out that the economy was doing very well at the time, unlike today where we have a record high deficit.

    I think more both numbers are out of control for a pat on the back party.... but I can't help but note the lack in logic in having a party that cost over 10 mil dollars more in wartime and during the highest deficit EVER.
    I don't know if it's a question so much of how well the economy was doing under Clinton, but the issue is how much of that $30 million Clinton used came from taxpayers.

    I don't care that Bush's supporters set aside $40 million for his inauguration, it's the $10 million plus from taxpayers that pisses me off.
    "She has written so well, and marvellously well, that I was completely ashamed of myself as a writer...But this girl, who is to my knowledge very unpleasant and we might even say a high-grade bitch, can write rings around all of us who consider ourselves as writers"

    Ernest Hemingway on writer, aviation pioneer and horse trainer Beryl Markham


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    Featured Member Muyaha's Avatar
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    Default Re: Fiscal Conservatives my ass! The inauguration fiasco...

    That's funny that Ninadaisy posted this... today while I was checking my email someone sent me this link... I'm not supporting it or anything....
    http://www.notonedamndime.com

    I may have many faults, but being wrong ain't one of them.

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    Default Re: Fiscal Conservatives my ass! The inauguration fiasco...

    Isn't fiscal conservatism supposed to be a major tenet of the GOP?
    Sadly, it has waned since 1982, though there was a slight resurrgence in the years between 1994 and 1998.

    Corporate welfare is a serious problem; when you pay market-challenged farmers $120 billion over ten years--after passing the 1996 Freedom to Farm Act, which would have eventually eliminated subsidies entirely--you're not demonstrating fiscal leadership.

    We suffer from bipartisan attitudes that tell the US public that they can continue getting something for nothing, even though our federal account balances and monetary policies are coming to a head.

    And GWB hasn't even threatened to use the veto pen once. Not once. At this rate, even with his new budget--which ostensibly would keep spending to 1% growth in discretionary programs--GWB will have overseen the largest growth in the size and power of the federal government, even surpassing LBJ. It will be interesting to see how events unfold in the next 18 months.
    Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality, the costs become prohibitive.

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    God/dess NinaDaisy's Avatar
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    Default Re: Fiscal Conservatives my ass! The inauguration fiasco...

    Oh yeah, the GOP is supposedly for smaller government too, right?

    So just exactly what is it about GWB that makes him a real Republican.
    "She has written so well, and marvellously well, that I was completely ashamed of myself as a writer...But this girl, who is to my knowledge very unpleasant and we might even say a high-grade bitch, can write rings around all of us who consider ourselves as writers"

    Ernest Hemingway on writer, aviation pioneer and horse trainer Beryl Markham


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    Default Re: Fiscal Conservatives my ass! The inauguration fiasco...

    Quote Originally Posted by NinaDaisy
    Oh yeah, the GOP is supposedly for smaller government too, right?

    So just exactly what is it about GWB that makes him a real Republican.
    He goes to church, he has a low IQ, he opposes education, healthcare, and the environment, he thinks businesses can be trusted to regulate themselves.

    Yeah, I don't know, what does make him a real Republican?
    "He will come in one of the pre-chosen forms. During the rectification of the Vuldrini, the traveler came as a large and moving Torg! Then, during the third reconciliation of the last of the McKetrick supplicants, they chose a new form for him: that of a giant Slor! Many Shuvs and Zuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the Slor that day, I can tell you!"

  13. #13
    Jay Zeno
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    Default Re: Fiscal Conservatives my ass! The inauguration fiasco...

    I see we're back to the simplifications and generalizing. I shouldn't have posted the Jefferson excerpt. Sorry for trying to upset the mood.

    I don't care much for spending a ton of money on the Inauguration. If you accepted it for Clinton's party but don't like it for Bush, or if you accept it for Bush's bash but didn't like it for Clinton, well, that's inconsistent. But it just seems to be the way things have to happen now, and I'll hope for better (probably in vain) from the next one four years from now.

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    God/dess Lena's Avatar
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    Default Re: Fiscal Conservatives my ass! The inauguration fiasco...

    Jay, I think the issue is that the taxpayers didn't pay for Clintons party. Or did they? Do we know?



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    God/dess NinaDaisy's Avatar
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    Default Re: Fiscal Conservatives my ass! The inauguration fiasco...

    My point exactly. As far as I know, Clinton's Inauguration was all privately funded.

    Melonie, it's for this reason that your analogy to NY paying more to secure the UN and corporate buildings falls flat. The need to secure these things is quite real, but the inauguration festivities are elastic in terms of how grand of a party the Grand Old Party wants to have.

    Now while I'm sure many of us can think of much better ways to spend $30 and $40 million dollars, if it's private money that was raised they can basically do whatever they want with it.

    But why the extra $10 million? Can't Bush and Co. cut a few corners here and there? Or would that cut down on the aggrandizing of Dubya?
    "She has written so well, and marvellously well, that I was completely ashamed of myself as a writer...But this girl, who is to my knowledge very unpleasant and we might even say a high-grade bitch, can write rings around all of us who consider ourselves as writers"

    Ernest Hemingway on writer, aviation pioneer and horse trainer Beryl Markham


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    Banned Melonie's Avatar
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    Default Re: Fiscal Conservatives my ass! The inauguration fiasco...

    But why the extra $10 million? Can't Bush and Co. cut a few corners here and there? Or would that cut down on the aggrandizing of Dubya?
    Actually the inauguration itself probably only costs $20 million ($10 million less than Clinton's), with another $20 million for NEW costs to provide airtight security over Washington DC i.e. police overtime, security checkpoints (which did not exist for Clinton's inauguration). D.C. is saying that they want the federal gov't to make a special appropriation of $40 million to cover these new security costs surrounding the inauguration. Dubya is saying that D.C. has already received $240 million (i.e. $80 mil per year for the last 3 years) in general homeland security funding (an appropriation which also did not exist in the Clinton era) paid for by US taxpayers, and that D.C. should therefore be using money from that appropriation to cover security costs of the inauguration instead of asking for yet more federal money.

    This isn't about the cost of the inauguration ceremony proper, which is mostly privately funded. If the truth were known it's about D.C. having spent too much of its federal homeland security appropriation on God-knows-what-else besides homeland security. Given the record breaking per-capita spending by D.C. on education costs, plus generous social welfare benefits etc. it's not too difficult to figure out where those homeland security appropriations might have been diverted to. By forcing D.C. to use their homeland security appropriation money in the way it was originally intended, Dubya is indirectly forcing D.C. taxpayers to pay more of their own costs of education, social welfare benefits etc.

  17. #17
    Jay Zeno
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    Default Re: Fiscal Conservatives my ass! The inauguration fiasco...

    Lena, I don't know how much the Clinton and/or Bush parties were paid for by private money or public money, so I won't comment in ignorance. My point - or one of them - is that we don't need all of that to swear in the guy, regardless of political affiliation.

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    Default Re: Fiscal Conservatives my ass! The inauguration fiasco...

    Actually the inauguration itself probably only costs $20 million ($10 million less than Clinton's)


    Well considering that Clinton balanced the budget and Bush put the country deeper in debt than ever before in history, I seriously doubt the comment I quoted above is true.

    I think the key word in her comment is probably. Got any proof to back that probably up ?

    But here's some info I found on this topic in general :
    Last edited by NurseGoodbody; 01-14-2005 at 12:49 PM.

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    Default Re: Fiscal Conservatives my ass! The inauguration fiasco...

    well, if private political donors are paying $40 mil for the inauguration, or $140 mil for that matter, I could care less how much the inauguration costs. However, when it comes to a local government agency trying to spend more of my tax money, in this case D.C. lobbying for a special appropriation from congress to provide security for the inauguration which they have ALREADY received huge congressional appropriations to pay for, then I DO care.

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