Economist Endorses Kerry, Reluctantly

An anonymous reader writes "The Economist has picked John Kerry as its preferred presidential candidate, over George W. Bush. Though a British publication, the magazine points out that almost half of its readers are based in the U.S. The Economist leans right on trade issues and supported going to war in Iraq, but has been critical on Bush's policies on tax cuts and the deficit."

Re: Info

[revscat]

I blame the line item veto (the real reason the budget declined during the Clinton years), which was removed following the impeachment trial.

The line item veto was never actually implemented. As soon as the bill was signed by Clinton it was challenged on constitutional grounds and kept from going into effect. The SCOTUS eventually ruled it unconstitutional, and the OMB afterwards announced that the 40 items that were line item vetoed would have their funds released.

The budget deficit looked good because Clinton was a fiscally responsible president.

Re: Info

[lastninja]

Increases in non-defense discretionary spending over the past six administrations:

Nixon/Ford: 6.8% per year

Carter: 2.0% per year

Reagan: -1.3% per year

Bush 1: 4.0% per year

Clinton: 2.5% per year

Bush Jr: 8.2% per year

Source [washingtonmonthly.com]
And here [house.gov] is a nice graph.

Re:Newspapers voting for Kerry?

[demachina]

I've seen a number of editors of conservative newspapers explain why they endorsed Bush in 2000 and are either endorsing no one, Kerry or Bush only reluctantly in 2004. They are pretty consistent in what they say. They endorsed Bush in 2000 based on the policies he said he supported in the campaign, since it was all they had to go on other than his stint as Texas governor which wasn't a very good guide.

They are all disenchanted with him because his actual record in office has run counter to everything they thought he stood for.

In particular they naively though he would be fiscally conservative while he is instead dramatically expanding spending, while cutting taxes leading to a staggering debt. They were naive in thinking he would be fiscally conservative since Bush idolizes Reagan and Reagan ran up the deficit exactly the same way though Bush has taken it to a who new level. Reagan could blame the Dems for the spending since they controlled Congress. The Republicans have no one to blame but themselves and its especially bad since its massively, hypocritical juxtaposed to their fiscal responsibility rhetoric. All the editors put this at or near the top of their list for turning on him with the war in Iraq being the other top reason.

- During the campaign Bush said he was dead set against nation building but they are instead doing it all over the place especially in Iraq, Afghanistan and Haiti. Conservatives hate nation building.

- Bush/Cheney have established a track record of either lieing or being so completely wrong it borders on incompetence, especially on the reasons for invading Iraq. Most newspaper editors are thoughtful, educated and informed people. Bush/Cheney have been able to lie their way out of the lies with less thoughtful, less educated and less informed American. I don't think its working with newspaper editors who are smart enough to see that the Republicans are being consistently untruthful and are getting away with it.

There is a paper in Orlando, Florida who has been getting a lot of press for endorsing Kerry. They haven't endorsed a Democrat since Johnson in 1964. Its telling that Johnson was running a right wing extremist, Barry Goldwater, which is no doubt why they endorsed LBJ. You could conclude this paper is placing George W. Bush in the same class as Barry Goldwater. They do have a lot in common for their severe tilt to the far right, lack of judgement and thoughtful discretion.