BUFDRVR wrote:

In a pre OIF interview, President Bush (41) said his last cuts, in
'93, would have been the end of his draw down.

He also said "no new taxes." It's very easy for Bush to say *now* that he
would have not cut further, but there's no way to be sure what would have
actually happened in the event. Congress was certainly pushing for more
cuts. They wanted (and got) a balanced budget. Defense was the most
obvious bill-payer.

I'm inclined to believe that Bush would have run into the same basic
financial constraints in a notional second term. I suspect they probably
would have reassessed their plans and made further cuts.

Both his Sec. of State
(James Baker) and SecDef (our current VP Cheney) backed this up.

Clinton went much further, and much faster than Bush (41) was
prepared to go.

Right, and they have no reason to be anything but totally frank. Granted
you can't prove a counterfactual, but what people say they would have done
is not always the same as what they would have actually done.

--
Tom Schoene Replace "invalid" with "net" to e-mail
"If brave men and women never died, there would be nothing
special about bravery." -- Andy Rooney (attributed)