Taxes!

[editec]

What incentive do our congresspersons have to spend less?

None really.

They are funded by petitioners seeking business and considerations in the laws from the government, and then we voters reward these tools with relection regardless of how much they spend, just so long as they keep bringing pork to our locales.

You want to get them to work toward spending less? First of all stop voting based on social issues. They have nothing to do with why America is going broke (or everything, since those are what drive elections)

Make their salaries inversely proportional to how much money each congress spends.

That and COMPLETELY CHANGE THE WAY POLS FINANCE CAMPAIGNS!

 

[Skull Pilot]

Go to the constitution. Cut every federal government department that is not specifically mentioned.

then take the operating budgets of all those departments and cut that amount from the budget and reduce the taxpayer burden accordingly..

Voila!!!! the federal government is running on less taxes AND we all have more money in our pockets.

 

[Skull Pilot]

If the government were smaller and less involved in people's lives, wouldn't they need less of our money to begin with? Isn't the principle behind the US Constitution ... to limit and restrict government? When did it become the government's job to run everything?

The anti-government stance of the rightists is a curious one, since a significant state presence is a necessary component of a capitalist economy; the government acts as an integral agent that generates macroeconomic stabilization and sustains the physical efficiency of the working class through utilization of welfare state policies. Consultation of the available empirical research will support this view. For example, consider Yu's A new perspective on the role of the government in economic development: Coordination under uncertainty.

[The government] possesses some unique features that distinguish it from the firm. Such features allows the government to regulate competition, reduce uncertainty and provide a relatively stable exchange environment. Specifically, in the area of industrial policy, the government can help private enterprises tackle uncertainty in the following ways: first, locating the focal point by initiating projects; providing assurance and guarantees to the large investment project; and facilitating the exchange of information; second, reducing excessive competition by granting exclusive rights; and third, facilitating learning and diffusion of technologies, and assisting infant industry firms to build up competence. The history of developmental success indicates that the market and the state are not opposed forms of social organisation, but interactively linked (Rodrik, 1997, p. 437). In the prospering and dynamic nations, public-private coordination tends to prevail. Dynamic private enterprises assisted by government coordination explain the successful economic performances in the post-war Japan and the Asian newly industrialising economies. It is their governments' consistent and coordinated attentiveness to the economic problems that differentiates the entrepreneurial states (Yu, 1997) from the predatory states (Boaz and Polak, 1997).

I support the eventual elimination of the state, of course, but that would also necessitate the elimination of capitalism.

2) EQUAL % burden in taxation on every dollar earned by every person

That is an inherently regressive proposal that would effectively constitute an unequal burden, given the reality of the diminishing rate of marginal utility. Why is such a basic economic truth ignored?

What is your definition of significant?

I don't know anyone who wants no government. Smaller does not equal none.

A certain level of government is necessary to protect property rights etc needed to run a capitalist system. that level of government should consume no more than about 20% of GDP. Once government consumption of the private economy rises above that mark, the economy is less productive because government makes it too expensive to conduct business because government now reaps the profits rather than the people.

 

[Agnapostate]

What is your definition of significant?

In terms of the capitalist economy, the ideal would be a form of social democratic capitalism, wherein the welfare state is utilized to the fullest extent to maximize the aforementioned economic benefits. A decreasing government presence in a capitalist economy is what accounts for the inferior performance of rightist Anglo-Saxon capitalism to centrist liberal democratic capitalism and leftist social democratic capitalism and related forms of Rhine capitalism.

I don't know anyone who wants no government. Smaller does not equal none.

Legitimate anarchists do. "Anarcho"-capitalists profess to, but the continued existence of capitalism would of course involve the continued existence of hierarchical constrictions.

A certain level of government is necessary to protect property rights etc needed to run a capitalist system. that level of government should consume no more than about 20% of GDP. Once government consumption of the private economy rises above that mark, the economy is less productive because government makes it too expensive to conduct business because government now reaps the profits rather than the people.

As put by Yu, "the government possesses certain unique features that allow it to restrict competition, and provide stable and reliable conditions under which firms organise, compete, cooperate and exchange. The coordinating perspective is employed to re-examine the arguments for industrial policies regarding private investment decisions, market competition, diffusion of technologies and tariff protection on infant industries. This paper concludes that dynamic private enterprises assisted by government coordination policies explains the rapid economic growths in post-war Japan and the Asian newly industrialising economies." This role of government coordination in the capitalist economy is an integral one, and goes far above and beyond mere protection of private property rights, though the latter is certainly an illustrative form of the state protecting coercion.

 

[Zoom-boing]

DAMIT Meister.....you got my vote.....

Meister is running for office? Where? I'd vote for 'em.

he is going to try and unseat Bobo as mayor of Bobosville.....

It'll never happen, Sealy has a lock on that job!

 

[LionofDC]

If the population and the body politic for that matter cared more about education and basic literacy, then perhaps more people would be less irked by taxes. It would benefit our country so much if people would actually knew what is going on.

The reason why government is so disliked is because people have the notion that government fails at whatever it does. This of course isn't true, but perception in this case is the reality. So in-turn an uneducated society elects hustlers and grifters into office. They whisper sweet nothings in our ears, tell us what we want to hear, and for the most part people go about their business and don't even question the legitimacy of their ridiculous claims or policies.

Then enlighten us oh wise one. What is it specifically that our government does so amazingly well? By the very nature of how it is set up there is almost no way government could efficiently do much of anything. In order of effectiveness there are three ways to spend money. You can spend your money on you. You can spend someone elses money on you. Or, last and least effective, other people can spend other people's money on other people. I don't need to draw a map i don't think on which of those is government.

Well an educated democratic and free society would be more inquired to look deeper in what is being told to them. They would seek more knowledge and thus the elected officials would have to answer to more fierce questions when it comes to their policies. The government will be forced to have to perform, otherwise politicians will be held accountable. So if they are interested in maintaining their power they will have to ensure they are doing a good job. The programs they propose better be managed by qualified people who have a vested interested in making sure programs succeed. The more programs succeed the better the government functions as a whole.

This will hold true for governments at all levels, local, state and federal. Just imagine going to the DMV and not leaving with a higher blood pressure than you had going in (Okay maybe we can't fix everything). But imagine more efficiency, which means things can be done cheaper and with less waste. Then people will see that taxes make sense, because there is actual value in the return for the dollars being spent.

The situation we have now is that people aren't educated. The grifters come in and hustle the people, give them terrible government and the people don't want to pay taxes because the government can't do anything right. I am not saying that the people who are anti-taxes are uneducated, this is not true at all. There are valid reason to not like paying taxes. However if we did have a government which performed at a higher level, I think we would not have tea bag parties. But for some you tea baggers out there, before you shake the stick at the government check yourself. The elected officials represent you. So don't get mad when you get pimped slapped with a higher tax. You should have learned to read all the fine print the last 30 years and noticed it was you who was getting screwed.

Humans are like water, most will follow the past of least resistance. If not doing much of anything works then that's probably what people will do. It is human nature to make things as easy, painless, convenient as possible. If going through life will be just okay with relatively little effort, that is fine for an awful lot of people. Education only works if people want to be educated. Money can't fix our education system. Giving you $20 doesn't make you any smarter than you were 5 minutes ago.

Well government does a few things pretty well. I would say that for the most part our military structure is pretty sound and efficient. The spending part is separate from the actual function of the line of duty. The spending part is more about lobbying than it is about how we execute our military operations, and that is a Democrat and Republican issue. I would say our fire departments function pretty well too.

And the reason why government works so poorly is less to do with the nature of government but more to do with people allowing politicians to dictate the conversation that government is bad. For the past 30 years conservatives have fought tooth and nail to ensure that their principle of smaller government make sense. So while in power they spend their time really working to make government not work.

This all came to ridiculous fruition during the Bush era. The prime example was Katrina. Bush had such a disdain for "government" that he would put his buddies with no qualifications in key positions. The result: I don't have to harp on the past to let you know what happened here.

And what about regulation in every aspect. Conservatives don't believe in it. So we have seen a decline in food safety, financial, road, school infrastructure and countless other areas. Oh I forgot conservatives believe the free market will take care of these things...Did I miss something? Why would the private sector give a damn about food safety, public schools, keeping our roads drivable? For it costs too much and the key investors don't want to see their stock go down three points in a quarter....

We have allowed the private sector 30 years to step up to the plate to make things better for us. What is the result? We are in worse shape than we were before. If we had some government regulation even if it wasn't fully efficient, we may have averted some of the financial problems we have had recently. We need government, even if it doesn't work well all the time. Otherwise the greedy folks make the calls, and that isn't good for the general public.

 

[Meister]

If the population and the body politic for that matter cared more about education and basic literacy, then perhaps more people would be less irked by taxes. It would benefit our country so much if people would actually knew what is going on.

The reason why government is so disliked is because people have the notion that government fails at whatever it does. This of course isn't true, but perception in this case is the reality. So in-turn an uneducated society elects hustlers and grifters into office. They whisper sweet nothings in our ears, tell us what we want to hear, and for the most part people go about their business and don't even question the legitimacy of their ridiculous claims or policies.

Then enlighten us oh wise one. What is it specifically that our government does so amazingly well? By the very nature of how it is set up there is almost no way government could efficiently do much of anything. In order of effectiveness there are three ways to spend money. You can spend your money on you. You can spend someone elses money on you. Or, last and least effective, other people can spend other people's money on other people. I don't need to draw a map i don't think on which of those is government.

Well an educated democratic and free society would be more inquired to look deeper in what is being told to them. They would seek more knowledge and thus the elected officials would have to answer to more fierce questions when it comes to their policies. The government will be forced to have to perform, otherwise politicians will be held accountable. So if they are interested in maintaining their power they will have to ensure they are doing a good job. The programs they propose better be managed by qualified people who have a vested interested in making sure programs succeed. The more programs succeed the better the government functions as a whole.

This will hold true for governments at all levels, local, state and federal. Just imagine going to the DMV and not leaving with a higher blood pressure than you had going in (Okay maybe we can't fix everything). But imagine more efficiency, which means things can be done cheaper and with less waste. Then people will see that taxes make sense, because there is actual value in the return for the dollars being spent.

The situation we have now is that people aren't educated. The grifters come in and hustle the people, give them terrible government and the people don't want to pay taxes because the government can't do anything right. I am not saying that the people who are anti-taxes are uneducated, this is not true at all. There are valid reason to not like paying taxes. However if we did have a government which performed at a higher level, I think we would not have tea bag parties. But for some you tea baggers out there, before you shake the stick at the government check yourself. The elected officials represent you. So don't get mad when you get pimped slapped with a higher tax. You should have learned to read all the fine print the last 30 years and noticed it was you who was getting screwed.

Humans are like water, most will follow the past of least resistance. If not doing much of anything works then that's probably what people will do. It is human nature to make things as easy, painless, convenient as possible. If going through life will be just okay with relatively little effort, that is fine for an awful lot of people. Education only works if people want to be educated. Money can't fix our education system. Giving you $20 doesn't make you any smarter than you were 5 minutes ago.

Well government does a few things pretty well. I would say that for the most part our military structure is pretty sound and efficient. The spending part is separate from the actual function of the line of duty. The spending part is more about lobbying than it is about how we execute our military operations, and that is a Democrat and Republican issue. I would say our fire departments function pretty well too.

And the reason why government works so poorly is less to do with the nature of government but more to do with people allowing politicians to dictate the conversation that government is bad. For the past 30 years conservatives have fought tooth and nail to ensure that their principle of smaller government make sense. So while in power they spend their time really working to make government not work.

This all came to ridiculous fruition during the Bush era. The prime example was Katrina. Bush had such a disdain for "government" that he would put his buddies with no qualifications in key positions. The result: I don't have to harp on the past to let you know what happened here.

And what about regulation in every aspect. Conservatives don't believe in it. So we have seen a decline in food safety, financial, road, school infrastructure and countless other areas. Oh I forgot conservatives believe the free market will take care of these things...Did I miss something? Why would the private sector give a damn about food safety, public schools, keeping our roads drivable? For it costs too much and the key investors don't want to see their stock go down three points in a quarter....

We have allowed the private sector 30 years to step up to the plate to make things better for us. What is the result? We are in worse shape than we were before. If we had some government regulation even if it wasn't fully efficient, we may have averted some of the financial problems we have had recently. We need government, even if it doesn't work well all the time. Otherwise the greedy folks make the calls, and that isn't good for the general public.

Oh Brother.....Yes, the military does work well overall. Fire dept, is maintained by the city and county I do believe and not in the hands of the feds.
I think you are expressing an opinion and nothing really to back up what your saying about conversation dictating the direction of our government. You see, big government had to raid SS to get the funds they needed for their big government projects...this wan't by conversation. It wasn't conversation that put our Medicare, and SS into the dire straits they're in now....it's because of government mismanagement.....from both sides. Geeze I can't believe you made this a partisan problem.
I agree that some of Bush's appointee's were not up for the task, but that's politics. The epitome of this was under the Carter administration, and how the inept ran our great country into a deep recession.....deeper than what Bush had going on. You brought up Katrina well, the first line of defense isn't the federal government, it was the city, and state to be frontline...maybe you didn't think of that because it wa being run by the democrats. So let me name a couple of names for you, the first would be Ray Nagin, and the second would be Kathleen Blanco. Blanco asked for the feds help too late to make a difference. She could have had the National Gaurd on the spot to help with the evacuation, but didn't do it until it was too late. So when you pull the blame Bush, at least put Blanco, and Nagin in the sentence also.
Most Republicans believe in regulation.....but there is a fine point of regulating and over regulating. Over regulating stifles growth, and under Carter that is exactly what he did.
I would rather have the "greedy private sector" to make the calls than the "greedy government" to make the calls. I make more money when the private sector is in charge.

 

[edthecynic]

One idea: Do a way with income tax and have a national sales tax instead. That would be a far more fair system.

The Fair Tax! Replace Corporate, Income, Capital and the payroll tax with the fair tax!

Would you two support replacing all taxes with a Corporate Tax?

Corporations pass their taxes on to the consumer, so all corporate taxes are de facto consumption taxes, but I have found no Fair Taxer supports corporate taxes. This begs the question, if a Fair Tax is good why are corporate taxes bad?

 

[edthecynic]

Here is the real kicker though - history shows that when tax rates reduced, revenues actually increase

CON$ervative revisionist history, maybe!
Why didn't that happen when Reagan cut taxes in 1981???
After St Ronnie's cut the economy and revenues tanked giving us the Reagan Recession, the worst recession since the great depression. Reagan then RAISED taxes 8 times in 6 years and revenue increased.

 

[Meister]

Here is the real kicker though - history shows that when tax rates reduced, revenues actually increase

CON$ervative revisionist history, maybe!
Why didn't that happen when Reagan cut taxes in 1981???
After St Ronnie's cut the economy and revenues tanked giving us the Reagan Recession, the worst recession since the great depression. Reagan then RAISED taxes 8 times in 6 years and revenue increased.

Might want to do a little research on this. The worst recession since the Great Depression was from the Carter years. I have stated this repeately in other theads. The left just seems to ignore that fact. Reagan inherited the recession...and he did get us out of it. You are the one with the revisionist history. Just sayin....

 

[LionofDC]

Then enlighten us oh wise one. What is it specifically that our government does so amazingly well? By the very nature of how it is set up there is almost no way government could efficiently do much of anything. In order of effectiveness there are three ways to spend money. You can spend your money on you. You can spend someone elses money on you. Or, last and least effective, other people can spend other people's money on other people. I don't need to draw a map i don't think on which of those is government.





Humans are like water, most will follow the past of least resistance. If not doing much of anything works then that's probably what people will do. It is human nature to make things as easy, painless, convenient as possible. If going through life will be just okay with relatively little effort, that is fine for an awful lot of people. Education only works if people want to be educated. Money can't fix our education system. Giving you $20 doesn't make you any smarter than you were 5 minutes ago.

Well government does a few things pretty well. I would say that for the most part our military structure is pretty sound and efficient. The spending part is separate from the actual function of the line of duty. The spending part is more about lobbying than it is about how we execute our military operations, and that is a Democrat and Republican issue. I would say our fire departments function pretty well too.

And the reason why government works so poorly is less to do with the nature of government but more to do with people allowing politicians to dictate the conversation that government is bad. For the past 30 years conservatives have fought tooth and nail to ensure that their principle of smaller government make sense. So while in power they spend their time really working to make government not work.

This all came to ridiculous fruition during the Bush era. The prime example was Katrina. Bush had such a disdain for "government" that he would put his buddies with no qualifications in key positions. The result: I don't have to harp on the past to let you know what happened here.

And what about regulation in every aspect. Conservatives don't believe in it. So we have seen a decline in food safety, financial, road, school infrastructure and countless other areas. Oh I forgot conservatives believe the free market will take care of these things...Did I miss something? Why would the private sector give a damn about food safety, public schools, keeping our roads drivable? For it costs too much and the key investors don't want to see their stock go down three points in a quarter....

We have allowed the private sector 30 years to step up to the plate to make things better for us. What is the result? We are in worse shape than we were before. If we had some government regulation even if it wasn't fully efficient, we may have averted some of the financial problems we have had recently. We need government, even if it doesn't work well all the time. Otherwise the greedy folks make the calls, and that isn't good for the general public.

Oh Brother.....Yes, the military does work well overall. Fire dept, is maintained by the city and county I do believe and not in the hands of the feds.
I think you are expressing an opinion and nothing really to back up what your saying about conversation dictating the direction of our government. You see, big government had to raid SS to get the funds they needed for their big government projects...this wan't by conversation. It wasn't conversation that put our Medicare, and SS into the dire straits they're in now....it's because of government mismanagement.....from both sides. Geeze I can't believe you made this a partisan problem.
I agree that some of Bush's appointee's were not up for the task, but that's politics. The epitome of this was under the Carter administration, and how the inept ran our great country into a deep recession.....deeper than what Bush had going on. You brought up Katrina well, the first line of defense isn't the federal government, it was the city, and state to be frontline...maybe you didn't think of that because it wa being run by the democrats. So let me name a couple of names for you, the first would be Ray Nagin, and the second would be Kathleen Blanco. Blanco asked for the feds help too late to make a difference. She could have had the National Gaurd on the spot to help with the evacuation, but didn't do it until it was too late. So when you pull the blame Bush, at least put Blanco, and Nagin in the sentence also.
Most Republicans believe in regulation.....but there is a fine point of regulating and over regulating. Over regulating stifles growth, and under Carter that is exactly what he did.
I would rather have the "greedy private sector" to make the calls than the "greedy government" to make the calls. I make more money when the private sector is in charge.

Anyways government is ineffective not by nature, but because of the politics. To brush of something such as a major appointment as just politics fails to recognize that most of the reasons our government doesn't work is because of politics. I can speak from experience here. As a person who grew up in Washington, DC, I know how politics can screw up everything. We had a Mayor, everyone knows his name, Marion Barry. When he was first elected, he did a hell of a job. Then after a few terms, he started hitting the pipe, and I am not talking about crack (Which of course he smoked too). He smoked the power pipe. He started appointing his buddies in key positions and they just mailed it in. As a result government started to fail because the management was negligent and unqualified to do their jobs properly.

This is politics my friend and it has everything to do with bad government, you cannot separate the two. People in high level government get jobs because of politics. If they are unqualified in leadership positions well we all suffer. Cronyism is everywhere, but in government it is ugly. This goes back to the desire to have an educated public. If they were more educated they wouldn't stand for this stuff. It wouldn't be the status quo.

I don't blame government for this, I blame the people. If they don't want to get educated, well that is their choice. However the government is a reflection of who we are. If it doesn't work it, well we should demand better. It is easy to blame the nameless and faceless entity known as "the government". It is just another example of people not wanting to admit that we are the reason it doesn't work, for it is people who make up the government

I am not trying to make this a partisan issue. Trust me, I am not a fan of the Democrats. Democrats are just as political as Republicans, more so in many cases. What I was saying is that the politics which have been under conservative control for the better part of 30 years hasn't worked. I admit Carter was a disaster as president, but let's try real progressive policies for more than just 4 years and see what happens. We have 30 years of stuff that doesn't work, it is time to change. If progressive policies don’t work, well maybe we should try something else. In the meantime let’s try to educate folks, so we don't have to keep going back to the drawing table.

 

[Skull Pilot]

One idea: Do a way with income tax and have a national sales tax instead. That would be a far more fair system.

The Fair Tax! Replace Corporate, Income, Capital and the payroll tax with the fair tax!

Would you two support replacing all taxes with a Corporate Tax?

Corporations pass their taxes on to the consumer, so all corporate taxes are de facto consumption taxes, but I have found no Fair Taxer supports corporate taxes. This begs the question, if a Fair Tax is good why are corporate taxes bad?

Corporate income taxes are on just that; corporate income or should we say corporate net income.

Most corporations pay out the majority of their profits to shareholders. so in that sense taxing what's left would result in a lower total income tax revenue.

How much money do you expect to get from a company that pays out the majority of its profit to shareholders or otherwise invests that money in R&D and capital expenditures?

It is far better not to tax corporations which would allow more money to be paid out to shareholders which would result in more tax revenue even if marginal tax rates were reduced

 

[Meister]

Well government does a few things pretty well. I would say that for the most part our military structure is pretty sound and efficient. The spending part is separate from the actual function of the line of duty. The spending part is more about lobbying than it is about how we execute our military operations, and that is a Democrat and Republican issue. I would say our fire departments function pretty well too.

And the reason why government works so poorly is less to do with the nature of government but more to do with people allowing politicians to dictate the conversation that government is bad. For the past 30 years conservatives have fought tooth and nail to ensure that their principle of smaller government make sense. So while in power they spend their time really working to make government not work.

This all came to ridiculous fruition during the Bush era. The prime example was Katrina. Bush had such a disdain for "government" that he would put his buddies with no qualifications in key positions. The result: I don't have to harp on the past to let you know what happened here.

And what about regulation in every aspect. Conservatives don't believe in it. So we have seen a decline in food safety, financial, road, school infrastructure and countless other areas. Oh I forgot conservatives believe the free market will take care of these things...Did I miss something? Why would the private sector give a damn about food safety, public schools, keeping our roads drivable? For it costs too much and the key investors don't want to see their stock go down three points in a quarter....

We have allowed the private sector 30 years to step up to the plate to make things better for us. What is the result? We are in worse shape than we were before. If we had some government regulation even if it wasn't fully efficient, we may have averted some of the financial problems we have had recently. We need government, even if it doesn't work well all the time. Otherwise the greedy folks make the calls, and that isn't good for the general public.

Oh Brother.....Yes, the military does work well overall. Fire dept, is maintained by the city and county I do believe and not in the hands of the feds.
I think you are expressing an opinion and nothing really to back up what your saying about conversation dictating the direction of our government. You see, big government had to raid SS to get the funds they needed for their big government projects...this wan't by conversation. It wasn't conversation that put our Medicare, and SS into the dire straits they're in now....it's because of government mismanagement.....from both sides. Geeze I can't believe you made this a partisan problem.
I agree that some of Bush's appointee's were not up for the task, but that's politics. The epitome of this was under the Carter administration, and how the inept ran our great country into a deep recession.....deeper than what Bush had going on. You brought up Katrina well, the first line of defense isn't the federal government, it was the city, and state to be frontline...maybe you didn't think of that because it wa being run by the democrats. So let me name a couple of names for you, the first would be Ray Nagin, and the second would be Kathleen Blanco. Blanco asked for the feds help too late to make a difference. She could have had the National Gaurd on the spot to help with the evacuation, but didn't do it until it was too late. So when you pull the blame Bush, at least put Blanco, and Nagin in the sentence also.
Most Republicans believe in regulation.....but there is a fine point of regulating and over regulating. Over regulating stifles growth, and under Carter that is exactly what he did.
I would rather have the "greedy private sector" to make the calls than the "greedy government" to make the calls. I make more money when the private sector is in charge.

Anyways government is ineffective not by nature, but because of the politics. To brush of something such as a major appointment as just politics fails to recognize that most of the reasons our government doesn't work is because of politics. I can speak from experience here. As a person who grew up in Washington, DC, I know how politics can screw up everything. We had a Mayor, everyone knows his name, Marion Barry. When he was first elected, he did a hell of a job. Then after a few terms, he started hitting the pipe, and I am not talking about crack (Which of course he smoked too). He smoked the power pipe. He started appointing his buddies in key positions and they just mailed it in. As a result government started to fail because the management was negligent and unqualified to do their jobs properly.

This is politics my friend and it has everything to do with bad government, you cannot separate the two. People in high level government get jobs because of politics. If they are unqualified in leadership positions well we all suffer. Cronyism is everywhere, but in government it is ugly. This goes back to the desire to have an educated public. If they were more educated they wouldn't stand for this stuff. It wouldn't be the status quo.

I don't blame government for this, I blame the people. If they don't want to get educated, well that is their choice. However the government is a reflection of who we are. If it doesn't work it, well we should demand better. It is easy to blame the nameless and faceless entity known as "the government". It is just another example of people not wanting to admit that we are the reason it doesn't work, for it is people who make up the government

I am not trying to make this a partisan issue. Trust me, I am not a fan of the Democrats. Democrats are just as political as Republicans, more so in many cases. What I was saying is that the politics which have been under conservative control for the better part of 30 years hasn't worked. I admit Carter was a disaster as president, but let's try real progressive policies for more than just 4 years and see what happens. We have 30 years of stuff that doesn't work, it is time to change. If progressive policies don’t work, well maybe we should try something else. In the meantime let’s try to educate folks, so we don't have to keep going back to the drawing table.

For the most part we are in agreement in what you say about politics, and politicians. People have to get educated, but what bothers me is that they are more concerned with "Dances with the Stars", and other programs as our nation is going bankrupt. For the last 30 years it hasn't been a conservative movement, but a movement for bigger government. But now there is a power grab in the government, what you call progressive....we can't afford it. This is costing us trillions of dollars of debt. Next year at this pace we are going to see inflation hit big time, and we can't afford to add that on to our debt. The answer is not more government......it needs to be fiscally controlled government. We're not going to be able to stick the toothpaste back in the tube once it's done.

 

[LionofDC]

Oh Brother.....Yes, the military does work well overall. Fire dept, is maintained by the city and county I do believe and not in the hands of the feds.
I think you are expressing an opinion and nothing really to back up what your saying about conversation dictating the direction of our government. You see, big government had to raid SS to get the funds they needed for their big government projects...this wan't by conversation. It wasn't conversation that put our Medicare, and SS into the dire straits they're in now....it's because of government mismanagement.....from both sides. Geeze I can't believe you made this a partisan problem.
I agree that some of Bush's appointee's were not up for the task, but that's politics. The epitome of this was under the Carter administration, and how the inept ran our great country into a deep recession.....deeper than what Bush had going on. You brought up Katrina well, the first line of defense isn't the federal government, it was the city, and state to be frontline...maybe you didn't think of that because it wa being run by the democrats. So let me name a couple of names for you, the first would be Ray Nagin, and the second would be Kathleen Blanco. Blanco asked for the feds help too late to make a difference. She could have had the National Gaurd on the spot to help with the evacuation, but didn't do it until it was too late. So when you pull the blame Bush, at least put Blanco, and Nagin in the sentence also.
Most Republicans believe in regulation.....but there is a fine point of regulating and over regulating. Over regulating stifles growth, and under Carter that is exactly what he did.
I would rather have the "greedy private sector" to make the calls than the "greedy government" to make the calls. I make more money when the private sector is in charge.

Anyways government is ineffective not by nature, but because of the politics. To brush of something such as a major appointment as just politics fails to recognize that most of the reasons our government doesn't work is because of politics. I can speak from experience here. As a person who grew up in Washington, DC, I know how politics can screw up everything. We had a Mayor, everyone knows his name, Marion Barry. When he was first elected, he did a hell of a job. Then after a few terms, he started hitting the pipe, and I am not talking about crack (Which of course he smoked too). He smoked the power pipe. He started appointing his buddies in key positions and they just mailed it in. As a result government started to fail because the management was negligent and unqualified to do their jobs properly.

This is politics my friend and it has everything to do with bad government, you cannot separate the two. People in high level government get jobs because of politics. If they are unqualified in leadership positions well we all suffer. Cronyism is everywhere, but in government it is ugly. This goes back to the desire to have an educated public. If they were more educated they wouldn't stand for this stuff. It wouldn't be the status quo.

I don't blame government for this, I blame the people. If they don't want to get educated, well that is their choice. However the government is a reflection of who we are. If it doesn't work it, well we should demand better. It is easy to blame the nameless and faceless entity known as "the government". It is just another example of people not wanting to admit that we are the reason it doesn't work, for it is people who make up the government

I am not trying to make this a partisan issue. Trust me, I am not a fan of the Democrats. Democrats are just as political as Republicans, more so in many cases. What I was saying is that the politics which have been under conservative control for the better part of 30 years hasn't worked. I admit Carter was a disaster as president, but let's try real progressive policies for more than just 4 years and see what happens. We have 30 years of stuff that doesn't work, it is time to change. If progressive policies don’t work, well maybe we should try something else. In the meantime let’s try to educate folks, so we don't have to keep going back to the drawing table.

For the most part we are in agreement in what you say about politics, and politicians. People have to get educated, but what bothers me is that they are more concerned with "Dances with the Stars", and other programs as our nation is going bankrupt. For the last 30 years it hasn't been a conservative movement, but a movement for bigger government. But now there is a power grab in the government, what you call progressive....we can't afford it. This is costing us trillions of dollars of debt. Next year at this pace we are going to see inflation hit big time, and we can't afford to add that on to our debt. The answer is not more government......it needs to be fiscally controlled government. We're not going to be able to stick the toothpaste back in the tube once it's done.

Yes we do agree. Smart government. We should have been concerned about the deficits long before 2009. None of the Republicans were complaining about deficits the past several years, and now that we have an economy in ruins we needed stimulus. Now I am in the Paul Krugman camp when it came to this. Did congress and the Pres deliver? Hell no. They gave us some stimulus and the rest was a joke. The Bank bailouts are terrible, but may be necessary. The auto takeover is a wait and see process (wait and see how much of a disaster it is). The healthcare turnover could work if done right, but the Dems are finding ways to screw it up. I agree that the government needs to be fiscally controlled, but they needed to do something with the economy because it was falling off the cliff. The private sector couldn't do it. You can't have the patient perform major surgery on themselves. The only available option is the government. Now the government isn't Jack Shepherd super surgeon(My "LOST" reference), but they have some tools to at least not kill the patient.

 

[edthecynic]

Here is the real kicker though - history shows that when tax rates reduced, revenues actually increase

CON$ervative revisionist history, maybe!
Why didn't that happen when Reagan cut taxes in 1981???
After St Ronnie's cut the economy and revenues tanked giving us the Reagan Recession, the worst recession since the great depression. Reagan then RAISED taxes 8 times in 6 years and revenue increased.

Might want to do a little research on this. The worst recession since the Great Depression was from the Carter years. I have stated this repeately in other theads. The left just seems to ignore that fact. Reagan inherited the recession...and he did get us out of it. You are the one with the revisionist history. Just sayin....

You might want to do a little research on that. The 1980 Carter recession was one of the shortest, only 6 months. The Reagan recession of 1981 - 1982 was 16 months long, the worst since the Great Depression and just a little worse than the 1973 - 1975 Nixon/Ford Recession.
Notice how the CON$ blame their recessions on what ever Democrat came before or after them. The Reagan Recession was Carter's and the Bush Depression is Obama's. Just saying....

 

[Bern80]

Well government does a few things pretty well. I would say that for the most part our military structure is pretty sound and efficient. The spending part is separate from the actual function of the line of duty. The spending part is more about lobbying than it is about how we execute our military operations, and that is a Democrat and Republican issue. I would say our fire departments function pretty well too. [/QOTE]

the minor difference there is that government involvement in those things pretty much ends and simply funding them. That is a far cry from government administering your health care.

And the reason why government works so poorly is less to do with the nature of government but more to do with people allowing politicians to dictate the conversation that government is bad. For the past 30 years conservatives have fought tooth and nail to ensure that their principle of smaller government make sense. So while in power they spend their time really working to make government not work.

When I talked about spending money effectively, that wasn't something I just came up with. It came from an economist you may have heard of named Milton Friedman. And the way government spends money is very much tied to their ineffectivenes at running things. You are right that many people are just plain stupid, but not for the reason you think. The fact that liberals are in power is all the evidence you need of how stupid, dependant and entitlement oriented we have become as a country. The ideas are really easy to like on paper. "If we run health care it will cost less." "If you give more money to schools, kids will be smarter." I could go on. The reason we are arguing for smaller government is because some people still believe in and understand the concept of freedom. Bigger government equals more government control which equals less of what this country was founded on in the first place, freedom. That is a simple, inarguable statement of fact. that being the case if you want to talk about a dumbed down society, maybe you need to start in the mirror.

And what about regulation in every aspect. Conservatives don't believe in it. So we have seen a decline in food safety, financial, road, school infrastructure and countless other areas. Oh I forgot conservatives believe the free market will take care of these things...Did I miss something? Why would the private sector give a damn about food safety, public schools, keeping our roads drivable? For it costs too much and the key investors don't want to see their stock go down three points in a quarter....

Except for that tiny incident where 'Fwank' and Clinton kept the Republicans from putting tighter regs on fanny and freddy of course. And you can't relly claim the free market doesn't work when no one has ever tried it. Why would the private sector care about teh quality of it's pruduct. Gosh, gee whiz, I don't know, maybe because IF IT SUCKS PEOPLE WONT BUY IT.

We have allowed the private sector 30 years to step up to the plate to make things better for us. What is the result? We are in worse shape than we were before. If we had some government regulation even if it wasn't fully efficient, we may have averted some of the financial problems we have had recently. We need government, even if it doesn't work well all the time. Otherwise the greedy folks make the calls, and that isn't good for the general public.

The problem isn't what the private sector did or didn't do for you. That isn't how your relationship with the private sector is suppossed to work in the first place. It isn't their job to make things better for you. THAT IS YOUR JOB. YOU educate YOU if you're tired of being taken. But ironically the reason the private sector hasn't done everything you think it should have is because of the very reason you gave previously, PEOPLE ARE STUPID. If I can make money buy selling sand in the desert, that's probably what I'm goinna do until someone wakes and see through my hype that this ain't the greatest thing since sliced bread. A free market requires responsibility on the part of EVERYONE. Big business and consumers. Big business job is to make money, that's how economies grow, how wealth is created and thus how peolpe's lives improve. YOUR job as a consumer is to be a responsible one. Educate yourself to see through the B.S. If you spot a scam or something wrong or dont' like about product x then don't fucking buy it. If enough people are educated then more people won't buy it and brand x will adjust accordingly. THAT is how the market works. Stop blaming someone else because you're too damn lazy to figure it out on your own.

 

[Meister]

CON$ervative revisionist history, maybe!
Why didn't that happen when Reagan cut taxes in 1981???
After St Ronnie's cut the economy and revenues tanked giving us the Reagan Recession, the worst recession since the great depression. Reagan then RAISED taxes 8 times in 6 years and revenue increased.

Might want to do a little research on this. The worst recession since the Great Depression was from the Carter years. I have stated this repeately in other theads. The left just seems to ignore that fact. Reagan inherited the recession...and he did get us out of it. You are the one with the revisionist history. Just sayin....

You might want to do a little research on that. The 1980 Carter recession was one of the shortest, only 6 months. The Reagan recession of 1981 - 1982 was 16 months long, the worst since the Great Depression and just a little worse than the 1973 - 1975 Nixon/Ford Recession.
Notice how the CON$ blame their recessions on what ever Democrat came before or after them. The Reagan Recession was Carter's and the Bush Depression is Obama's. Just saying....

Your a revisionist...that's plain to see. Carter's was short?.... your the one on LSD. Need to come up with more than that. Where is the depression with Bush's recession...oh yeah it was revised by Eddie

 

[AVG-JOE]

Well the government could start by living within their means, eliminating pork, eliminating czars, butting out of running private business, reducing the size of the government, having term limits . . . . wait, they should start with eliminating career politicians and get people in who will look out for the little guy. I know, I'm asking the impossible.

Maybe more "little guys" should run for office!

I'd go for that. But how do you keep a little guy who starts out honest and with good intentions from turning into a political zombie? Is there a pill for that?

Term limits. Take two and get a fucking real job.

-Joe

 

[AVG-JOE]

term limits for congress perhaps, as we did for presidents....8 years max and 2 terms for senator at 12 years max, term limiting the staff as well....the staffers have sometimes been there longer than the elected, and they deal with the lobbyists, the govt contracts....?

nationally funded elections....reduce the influence of corporations, big industries in their lobbying...campaign donations won't be needed, reduces quid pro quo dealings....

under no circumstances should no bid contracts be given....

so many simple or common sense things can be done to reduce the circumstances where these bozos need to spend so much....

THEN, I think if I could start from scratch on taxes, I would like to see all taxes eliminated such as cig taxes or booze taxes or luxury taxes or gas taxes and be put in to ONE TAX, and not all of these hidden taxes in the price of the products we use, we buy....plus our income taxes, medicare taxes, social security taxes....all going to our federal government.

we need to find a fair way to combine all of these taxes, and bill us once for them.

The reason I would like to see them all combined is because then all of us can see the total amount of taxes we are actually handing these suckers every year in taxes....one big lump sum...not them getting our money from a hundred different places where we really don't know how much they really are taking from us for their free for all spending sprees.

That lump sum, will make voters angry and more interest in who they vote for, when it comes to representing them and their best interest....there will seem to be more at stake.

As far as what type of single tax structure we take....I am open to ideas...fair ideas....

Personally, I believe a progressive tax via brackets, IS FAIR...if the first $1-10,000 only has a 10% tax on it then everyone, even the billionaire pays only 10% for the first $1-10,000 dollars he makes, so NO ONE is GETTING anything the other isn't getting...

The tax write offs and the tax code in and of itself is a MONSTER, confusing as hell even for someone like me, who makes nada now....trying to make certain you don't miss any tax write off or whatever!

I would like to see a Progressive Flat Tax....Where there are no tax write offs, no loop holes, no need for accountants or turbo tax or h & r block...

I read that those in the highest tax bracket, once 39% now 35% I believe, really averages, paying 19% in income taxes, so keep this in mind....also, those in the 15% tax bracket probably average paying 5% in income taxes after all of the deductions and write offs...

so why not just have a flat rate for each tax bracket range?

Something like
from $1-10,000, 0%
from $10,001-60,000, 10%
from $60,001-150,000, 15%
from $150k- 50 million, 20%
from $50 million upwards, 25%

we probably would collect as much in taxes with these lower flat rates than we do with all the tax write offs...

the income tax system could run on computer programs, the cost of IRS diminished to nothing....even more savings....the big wigs don't need tax lawyers/accountants...

well, that's my quick shot at it!

care

Now THAT is closer to the change I voted for!

-Joe

 

[LionofDC]

[/QUOTE]The problem isn't what the private sector did or didn't do for you. That isn't how your relationship with the private sector is suppossed to work in the first place. It isn't their job to make things better for you. THAT IS YOUR JOB. YOU educate YOU if you're tired of being taken. But ironically the reason the private sector hasn't done everything you think it should have is because of the very reason you gave previously, PEOPLE ARE STUPID. If I can make money buy selling sand in the desert, that's probably what I'm goinna do until someone wakes and see through my hype that this ain't the greatest thing since sliced bread. A free market requires responsibility on the part of EVERYONE. Big business and consumers. Big business job is to make money, that's how economies grow, how wealth is created and thus how peolpe's lives improve. YOUR job as a consumer is to be a responsible one. Educate yourself to see through the B.S. If you spot a scam or something wrong or dont' like about product x then don't fucking buy it. If enough people are educated then more people won't buy it and brand x will adjust accordingly. THAT is how the market works. Stop blaming someone else because you're too damn lazy to figure it out on your own.[/QUOTE]

This is how the market ought to work, but the reality is that we have firms now deemed to big to fail because they aren't regulated enough when it comes to what they can invest in. Was it true that many people with their interest only mortgages "buy" houses they couldn't really afford? Yes. However it isn't the public's fault that the economy crumbled, because of the Wild West mentality when it came to credit default swaps. Could this have been avoided during Clinton? Of course it could have, but I am not someone who claims that Clinton was a progressive either.

When it comes to education I am not someone who thinks that tossing money at the system helps. I am a product of the DC public school system (And no we aren't all criminals Senator DeMint if you are reading this). DCPS throws more money per student than any school district in the country. The result: failing schools. So the issue isn't money, however the issue isn't school vouchers either (which the right wing swears by and becomes a check in the end to the Catholic church).

We need real progressive radical change for education. And this means, (sorry my fellow liberals), this means we may need to break up the teacher unions. Barbara Bullock at one point was the head of the DC teachers union. She went to jail for stealing millions of dollars for buyings wigs etc. It was a joke. If Liberals want to spend money on education spend it on recruiting teachers. You do this by paying them more money and getting rid of tenure. I had far too many teachers who just mailed it in and it hurt the learning experience for kids. If we pay teachers more money, you may actually have more people motivated to become teachers. If teaching becomes a competitive occupation, the quality will raise in the classroom. In addition different teaching methods will have to be incorporated as in any other industry because every school district will be competing to get the edge to get the best teachers. The result could indeed be a more engaged student body.

How does this tie in with government. It does we need our politicians to take chances like this and really make radical changes. We haven't had real radical changes to shift how things work. We have small shifts to the left and the right, but little change to how the system works. In order for us to have real progression we need radical changes in many policies. And as cheesy as it may sound, the radical changes may need to begin with education, because if we begin there, the future leaders of this country can move from their with positive results.