Palin says 'absurd' not to ponder presidential bid

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sarah Palin says it would be "absurd" for her not to consider running for president in 2012....

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The most absurd thing would be if she runs, and stops using her star power to raise money to support conservative candidates, nationwide.

She could do more good that way, than running for office herself.

Her speech was reminiscent of GW. We don't need another compassionate conservative.

I am trying to decide if the tea party started as an independent party and was hijacked by Republicans or just was grass roots Republicans to start with.

Her speech was reminiscent of GW. We don't need another compassionate conservative.

 

I am trying to decide if the tea party started as an independent party and was hijacked by Republicans or just was grass roots Republicans to start with.

I don't think it was ever really a "party" nor do I think it should be. It should be a movement, that backs conservative candidates and if a party wants to adopt those conservative ideals to get the backing of the movement, so be it.

I think it was truly grass roots and the GOP are trying to court them, finally.

Do the tea partiers recognize the rate of government growth under GW? Do they know that the state of Alaska's spending per capita went up 30% in two years under Palin? If they do why are they so enamored with her? Are we gonna have another Republican nominee who is simply a big spending social conservative?

http://www.independent.org/newsroom/news_detail.asp?newsid=31

Bush spending up to 5 times more than Clinton

Reagan Revolution architect calls it 'era of obese government'

 

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Posted: August 03, 2006

1:00 am Eastern

 

? 2010 WorldNetDaily.com

 

 

 

 

 

WASHINGTON – Federal spending under the Bush administration has grown five times larger than that during the second term of the Clinton administration, charges a conservative Republican activist in a new book that paints the president as a traitor to his party.

In "Conservatives Betrayed," Richard Viguerie, credited with being one of the architects of the Reagan Revolution, says George W. Bush has set the stage for the punishment of his party by voters.

 

Viguerie compares spending by the federal government, adjusted for inflation, during the Clinton years vs. the Bush years. In Clinton's first term, federal expenditures rose 4.7 percent. In his second term, they rose 3.7 percent. In the first term of the Bush administration, however, spending rose 19.2 percent.

 

"If ever there was a case for divided government, here it is," writes Viguerie. "The lesson for many Americans is that today's Republicans cannot be trusted with the keys to both the executive and legislative branches of the federal government."

 

No matter how you slice it, Viguerie says, Bush makes Clinton look like a spending piker by comparison. For instance, the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University in New York keeps records that show how much the federal government spends on average each year for each person in the country. When this standard of measurement is used, the comparison between the two administrations is even more pronounced.

 

Cumulative growth in federal expenditures, adjusted for inflation, during the Clinton years actually shrunk by 1.1 percent. Yet, in the Bush first term, it rose 15 percent.

 

"During President Bush's first five years in office, the federal government increased by $616 billion," Viguerie writes. "That's a mammoth 33 percent jump in the size of the federal government in just his first five years! To put this in perspective, this increase of $616 billion is more than the entire federal budget in Jimmy Carter's last years in office. And conservatives were complaining about Big Government back then! How can Bush, (Dennis) Hastert, (Bill) Frist and company look us in the eye and tell us they are fiscal conservatives when in five short years they increased the already-bloated government by more than the budget for the entire federal government when Ronald Reagan was assuming office?"

Richard Viguerie

 

Another standard of comparison offered by Viguerie is discretionary domestic spending, adjusted for inflation.

 

"When we strip away defense, homeland security and entitlements and adjust for inflation, leaving only discretionary domestic spending, George W. Bush has grown the federal government at a faster pace than Lyndon Baines Johnson," Viguerie writes. "His record for profligate spending is outmatched (for the time being) only by another Big Government Republican, Richard Nixon. And when Bush's second term is over, there's every reason to expect that Bush will hold the record as the president who's grown the federal government at its fastest pace in modern times."

 

The numbers?

 

 

Johnson: 4.1 percent

 

Nixon/Ford: 5 percent

 

Carter: 1.6 percent

 

Reagan: 1.4 percent

 

Bush I: 3.8 percent

 

Clinton: 2.1 percent

 

Bush II: 4.8 percent

Viguerie compares the modern presidents on the use of the veto, too. While Johnson used the veto power 30 times, Nixon 43, Ford 66, Carter 31, Reagan 78, Bush I 44 and Clinton 36, Bush didn't use it at all in his first term and has used it just once – for a non-spending issue – in his second term.

 

"Bush apologists give the excuse that it's harder to veto bills that are passed by your own party," Viguerie writes. "Yet LBJ and Carter each cast 30 or more vetoes while their own party controlled Congress. In fact, the all-time master of the veto was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He used the veto power an incredible 636 times during his four terms – despite having a Democratic Congress with majorities as lopsided as 75-17 in the Senate and 333-89 in the House! Congress overrode his vetoes a mere nine times."

 

Yet another formula for measuring presidential fiscal responsibility, according to Viguerie, is rescissions. Reagan used rescission power to rescind funds authorized by Congress. Ford rescinded $7.9 billion in spending. Carter rescinded $4.6 billion, Reagan $43.4 billion, Bush I $13.1 billion, Clinton $6.6 billion.

 

But George W. Bush has not rescinded even $1 in congressional spending.

 

"The best illustration of the corrupting influence of power on the Republicans is the explosion of pork-barrel spending projects since 2000," says Viguerie.

 

Viguerie points to a 121 percent increase in pork-barrel earmarks in the first five years of the Bush administration.

 

"The size of the federal government is the single most important barometer of the health of the American republic," writes Viguerie. "When domestic federal spending goes up, it's a surefire indicator that something is wrong. And the way spending has been increasing under the Bush administration and the Republican Congress shows that things are seriously wrong."

Palin has the same social conservative background that got GW the Republican nomination, her record on economic issues is much more liberal than Bush's was in 2000.

The guy you copy/pasted that from forgot to account for inflation.

If we eliminate your false assumption of the oil sale money being part of welfare, then Sarah's record is a lot more conservative than even Newt before he took the trip to Washington.

As I keep pointing out, your taking completely rediclious possitions against Sarah and it seems to me your trying to justify why you did not vote conservative in the last election.

You independents love to claim your conservative but you voted for Obama instead, that is not the act of a conservative person. I know, you guys figure you will voted Liberal if the other guy is not what you feel is a good enough conservative but what I can't understand is why.......

McCain was not my first choice for President, but he was about 6 thousand possitions above me voting for Obama.

 

As I keep pointing out, your taking completely rediclious possitions against Sarah and it seems to me your trying to justify why you did not vote conservative in the last election.

to be fair... nobody voted for a conservative candidate last election.

to be fair... nobody voted for a conservative candidate last election.

Even if McCain was only 50% conservative, that is still better than 100% socialist liberal like Obama BM.

My point is while McCain was not someone I wanted, I wanted pure socialist less.....Call it the least of two evils while the worse evil was 100 times more evil than the least evil.

to be fair... nobody voted for a conservative candidate last election.

I'll continue voting Libertarian until the Republicans nominate another Reagan.

If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism.

Ronald Reagan

I'll continue voting Libertarian until the Republicans nominate another Reagan.

You mean like Ron, Jr.?

You mean like Ron, Jr.?

Ron Jr. would make his father puke if he saw him now.

I'll continue voting Libertarian until the Republicans nominate another Reagan.

So you voted with the rest of the libertarians and put Obama into office, why?

You guys are a contradiction, you pretend to be conservative but vote pure socialist whenever you do not like the Republican. I did not like McCain either, but I hated what Obama would do, or at least try to do, You guys are the very definition of contradiction.

Until conservatives realize what made Reagan different than the other Republican Presidents we are doomed to continue down the road to serfdom.

So you will help speed it up by voting for the socialist......now that makes sense....

What is even more absurd is some idiots will vote for her.

Rep worthy.

The most absurd thing would be if she runs, and stops using her star power to raise money to support conservative candidates, nationwide.

 

She could do more good that way, than running for office herself.

I'm sure that's what she means by if it's good for the country. She'll back the best canadate.

Do the tea partiers recognize the rate of government growth under GW? Do they know that the state of Alaska's spending per capita went up 30% in two years under Palin? If they do why are they so enamored with her? Are we gonna have another Republican nominee who is simply a big spending social conservative?

 

Under Bush, Federal Spending Increases at Fastest Rate in 30 Years: News Releases: The Independent Institute

 

 

 

Palin has the same social conservative background that got GW the Republican nomination, her record on economic issues is much more liberal than Bush's was in 2000.

Geeze hugo can you get of the Bush bashing bandwagon and look what's happing now.

Obama is more of a socialist then all of them put together.

Geeze hugo can you get of the Bush bashing bandwagon and look what's happing now.

Obama is more of a socialist then all of them put together.

But independents like hugo can't do that.....because they put Obama into office. Hugo is just following the anti Sarah Palin playbook, make any conservative who could win a popular vote "look" like Bush. Hugo is following the marching orders of the liberals now.

That is why I say hugo is a contradiction, by attacking anyone who could actually win an election and has at least "some" conservative values, he is helping the liberals win. People like hugo divide conservative groups against each other and that can only help the socialists.

And while I do not like hugo for doing this I know he is not stupid, he can understand that what he does is really going directly against the things he 'claims' to want so the only other explanation for why he is so against every conservative who runs for office is that hugo is really a closet liberal.

Think about it, hugo is always comming up with irrational excuses to put down people like Sarah, there is no reason anyone who is a real conservative would not want Palin to run against people like Obama unless they like Obama right where he is.