But this time from a conservative whose been around long enough to remember when we were struggling to break the Ginrich Revolution of '94 or even long enough to try and save the second term of Jimmy Carter against the lying, treacherous Reagan administration which kicked open the door for the current wave of neocon madness.

No, I'm not worried about any potential spending issues. You tax, then you spend that revenue. That's why we have taxes. What will be different is that the taxing and spending will be for us, the people, and not for the plutocracy which now rules our Republic, and which it purchased from the defunct, derelict and dilatory Republican party created from the debris of the Reagan insanity.

I'm not worried in the least. We'll be taxed as we always have, but this time the revenues will be guided by our own interests far more than it has been for 26 of the past 28 years.

I'm glad you're on board. You have a right to ask questions. The only stupid question is one you don't ask.

The only stupid answers will come from die-hard (and yet, strangely, dying anyway) neocons.

Thanks for showing up here.

Nice to see religion is still the last refuge of scoundrels. How's that Jesus-as-superhuman-shield working for you so far?

I just read Bill Kristol's column in the New York Times.

He is recommending that John McCain's campaign attack in the final days. Duh!

Then I started reading the posted comments by readers. I got through about 50 before I stopped. Not one post supported Kristol's posit.

The standard method for getting out of a recession/depression is to spend your way out. And really, if the way to recovery is to increase spending in the economy in general (which increases the money supply), how else can you do it except by deficit spending? Just print money?

The problem of course is that Bush and company decided "deficits don't matter" and spent money with wild abandon during good economic times, like a bunch of frat kids throwing a kegger. Throughout his life, George Bush has always, always been bailed out of his screw-ups by Daddy and his friends, so George never learned any self restraint.

Bush took over a flight that was already tight on reserves, but at least had been leveled out and was beginning to regain a bit of altitude (the Clinton budget surplus). The first thing Bush did was to shut off the autopilot, run the engines up to redline and dump fuel at the same time.

Now we are stalled out, and this time I really have to question if we have the "fuel" left to gun the economic engines to avoid a catastrophic crash.

A thoughtful, detailed, and pretty plausible response. But sounds like that'd be the same exact gameplan if McCain won...harsh recession = lower tax revenues, and massive spending (bailout, Iraq, etc) = huge deficits...so taxes would have to go up significantly no matter who was in charge. Does this seem right to you?

I guess your scenario just details the obvious, we ran up a LOT of spending in the last 8-10 years, some of it couldn't be avoided (9-11, and the recession that followed), some could (Iraq, Medicare drug benefit). Either way the money is borrowed and spent, and the big hole is there no matter who wins.

So as a conservative, is there another scenario you envision if McCain pulled off a miracle?

Gary, thanks for correctly using "foundering" in your article. I'm getting pretty sick of seeing "floundering" used in its place, even in professionally edited writing. Oy!

Readerreader, get real about the Palin debate. Entertaining? OK, I'll give you that. But I also watched it from the perspective of a job interview, as another letter-writer said. Palin tried to wink, charm, and smartass her way through it. ("Say it ain't so, Joe!" "Joe, it's not patriotic to pay taxes!" "Joe, that's just waving the white flag of surrender!" Shout-out to the third-grade class!) It reminded me, painfully, of a former coworker who charmed her way into a job she was manifestly unqualified for. She gloated that she got the hiring manager to call the person he had *already* offered the job to and throw her over--for my "babe" coworker in the tight purple dress. Ugh. Entertaining perhaps, but it's hardly inspiring to think of Palin in a position of real authority. I despise Darth Cheney, but I actually don't doubt his intelligence or experience or acumen. I can't believe I just wrote that, but it's true!

Let me be clear--what I truly despise is the Republican party choosing THIS election to put up the lightweight "babe" female candidate, and to see her embarrassing herself and being savaged in the press. It's despicable. It's a setback for intelligent professional women like nothing I would have imagined possible at the beginning of the primary race. It's making me grim and cynical and angry.

Another interesting add to the discussion, some of the spending would be small ticket items, and if they are targetted right (infrastructure, renewable energy) they can actually create jobs.

But it just seems that you can't undo the spending, you can only contain it going forward (Iraq was a costly mistake no doubt but it happened and it has to be resolved properly, and that won't happen overnight). And Obama, bless him, is a politician running for office and making all the promises they always do...but he'll have a Dem Congress behind him and it seems like he may want to spend more than we can afford to, and perhaps even raise taxes more than the economy can handle in a downturn. I guess any taxes he wants to increase unlikely to take effect until 2010 anyway.

From his platform I'd be ok with the increase on income tax for $250K+, raising cap gains to 20% (only, no need for more), and freezing estate tax exemption at $3.5 million

I am very much against raising the Social Security tax, even with his 'donut', windfall profits tax of oil companies (ridiculous and punitive, and look where oil prices are now), or raising taxes on dividends.

And with a recession on and only a few more taxes coming in, I don't think we can afford most of the spending he wants: national health, expanded tax credits for non-taxpayers (basically a handout, not a tax cut), etc. I would like to see a 'Manhattan Project' style renewable energy spending program, and infrastructure upgrades (telecom, roads, ports), but those not likely to be super costly.

I guess it's just a tough spot for anyone and it's hard to think Obama can make it all better just like that. Bush was a disaster, but we can't lurch too far left either.