|
View previous topic :: View next topic
|
| Author |
Message |
Donald
Joined: 16 Apr 2004
Posts: 493
|
 Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2005 1:28 pm Post subject: |
    |
|
| Quote: | The government is charged with the responsibility to provide for the collective citizenry those facilities which it needs but are individually unable to provide for themselves.
|
Where in the Constitution does it state that we use our tax dollars to provide for those unable to provide for themselves?
When a toll booth serves its purpose, close up the toll booths, the road has been paid for....by your tax dollars. When the private industry can run the trains for the "unfortunate" let them bid on running it...the system is paid for....many times over...when a school is not being used, close it, sell it or adapt it for another use...and on and on the spending reduction logic goes.
The president wants to shut down the taxpayer rip-off known as Amtrak...but will Congress go along? Of course not. Opposition is already lining up.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2005/2/8/210023.shtml
Last year, the Congress passed a spending bill that included, among other things: $1.2 billion for Amtrak, a 20 percent increase. Why? Does it say anything in the US Constitution about funding Amtrak? Also included: $56 billion for the Education Department, up 5 percent. Why the increase? Has education improved dramatically in this country since the Education Department was founded? I think not. You will be pleased to learn that $200,000 of your tax dollars went to run the World Tee program, to teach young people about the virtues of golf. Not to be outdone, your House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's home district received $9 million for a light rail system. I wonder if there's any more federal dollars going to tattoo removal programs this year?
Remember SDR, it's not the deficit, it's not the tax cuts, it's the spending that is the real problem  |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
SDR
millennium club
Joined: 02 Oct 2004
Posts: 1638
Location: San Francisco
|
| Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2005 2:45 pm Post subject: |
|
|
If you were to stop eating, think how much you could save on food!
Most CIVILIZED nations find ways to take care of the needs of their citizens, taxing them as necessary in the process. Health care and child care and education are available to all, without breaking the bank. Only in the wealthiest nation on Earth is heard the pathetic "I've got mine; ____ you."
I guess you are, philosophically, a libertarian?
It's just so odd, to me, to read your opinions on these matters -- so dogmatic and short-sighted -- when your posts on architectural and other matters, are models of reason and lucidity. . .
SDR |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Donald
Joined: 16 Apr 2004
Posts: 493
|
| Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2005 3:26 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: | | stop eating, think how much you could save on food |
Good Idea SDR!...please tell the federal imperial government to cut back on the get-out-of-work-free-coupons (food stamps). The program basically by which taxpayer money is wasted on parasites who are too lazy to provide for themselves. Welcome to the United States of America.
The food stamp program, which subsidizes the food purchases of 23 million, is a fraud and a rip-off of the American publics tax dollars. But nooooo...it's mean spirited to say that! Well guess what...the truth hurts.
From the BEA since 2000, it reports Personal Consumption on Non Durable Goods (like food) per Capita has grown 1.9% per year.
http://www.bea.gov/
From the USDA since 2000, the Average Food Stamp Benefit per Person has grown by 5.9%.
http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usdahome
Food stamp recipient's have received a benefit increase of 3X the growth rate that the population as a whole has consumed on non durable goods like food!
I thought, "of course the absolute dollars would increase because we've been through a recession". But these are averages PER PERSON! Not only are there more people getting benefits but they're getting more PER PERSON!! And I thought we were dismantling the Welfare State!
One final thought: EBT is that nifty way to train welfare recipients to use push button technology in obtaining their take. The same type of technology used for electronic voting. Frightening!... and since the term "food stamps" no longer has the right ring for the program....we need to look for a new name to better reflect the mission of this vital program. Since the mission of this program is to seize money from people who actually earn it and give it to those that don't, I have a suggestion for a new name: Push Button Blunder |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
SDR
millennium club
Joined: 02 Oct 2004
Posts: 1638
Location: San Francisco
|
| Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2005 3:55 pm Post subject: |
|
|
The kind of world we would like to live in (ie, Utopia) and the world we actualy inhabit (real people, warts and all) are two different things.
Real people are afflicted with greed, lust, avarice, sloth, etc etc etc. Some people can work, and won't; some can't work, for a variety of reasons; there are even workaholics!
Since you are apparently perfect, and therefore justified in judging all others, perhaps you should be given a special dispensation exempting you (and you alone, since you are apparently unique) from any connection to other humans.
The rest of us will share the burden of our fellow man. "There, but for the grace. . .
Do you somehow imagine that the problem of the indigent, and the burden they place on others, is unique to America? It IS getting worse, I'll grant you, as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer; this aspect of the matter IS perhaps uniquely American, at the present, thanks in great part to the policies of the current administration, in league with the curent corporate "culture" (if you can call it that): merge-and-cut-jobs, merge-and-cut-jobs.
What's the alternative, Donald: Work camps? If they can't or won't work, kill them? We send them to die for us abroad; why not just gas them and be done with it! More money for the rest of us, huh? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Donald
Joined: 16 Apr 2004
Posts: 493
|
| Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2005 4:17 pm Post subject: |
|
|
This just drives me nuts....as it's not about utopia, or good luck, SDR. With very few exceptions it's not the "unfortunate" who are seeking shelter. In this real world, it's the people who have managed to screw up their lives with a series of bad decisions. It's alcoholics and drug addicts, people who ignored their education and people who have made a conscious decision to avoid anything that looks like actual work. And it's not luck that puts people in a position for "the rich to get richer ." These are people who paid attention to their educational opportunities, people who left the drugs and alcohol alone. These are people who paid attention to the decisions that would create their reality and who were not afraid to put in 60 hour weeks.
The left just loves to push the "fortunate vs. unfortunate" line. It ignores the value of good decision making and hard work. The last thing the left would ever want to do would be to suggest that the poor continue to be poor because they keep doing the things that make them poor. Everybody knows, after all, that it just has to be someone else's fault. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Richard Haut
millennium club
Joined: 18 Apr 2004
Posts: 1097
Location: Nice, France
|
| Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2005 4:50 pm Post subject: |
|
|
"managed to screw up their lives with a series of bad decisions"
you mean like working for Enron or getting wounded serving their country ?
yup, see what you mean.
so what happened in your case, Donald ? after all, virtually everything you mention is 'somebody else's fault'.
_________________
Richard Haut has worked with the architectural profession for over 25 years and produces the weekly Richard Haut's Competitions, which has given architects details of many thousands of projects for which they can apply across Britain and Europe. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Donald
Joined: 16 Apr 2004
Posts: 493
|
| Posted: Thu Feb 17, 2005 2:16 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Yes, RH, working for Enron is a good example of a bad decision made, especially in how one had invested their entire future holdings, and working for the government could very well have been another bad decision made....depending on the individuals circumstance.
But yesterday we discussed it was Amtrak's government handout, today it's farm subsidies. In President Bush's $2.57 trillion budget proposal for FY 2006 (FY stands for "fiscal year," which begins in October) he is proposing that $94.6 billion be spent on the Department of Agriculture. That figure includes the food stamp program (otherwise known as 'free money for not working,') but we'll set that aside for just a minute.
The Congress passed a 10-year farm bill a couple years ago that spends $171 billion on farm subsidies. The idea behind this is to support poor family farmers from going under. But that isn't what happens. Besides, who cares? We live in a capitalist society. If you can't make a living in the farming business, do something else....just like if you can't make a living at being an architect, go do something else too. The Heritage Foundation points out that if government wanted to just help out family farmers, they could bring them all up to 185% of the poverty level for just $4 billion a year.
So under that farm bill, $20 billion gets handed out every year, mostly to large farms and big business. It's nothing more than corporate welfare. The amount of the handouts increase with the more crops that are grown. Of course, this further distorts the market place, because farmers are being paid to grow that which may not be needed. Here's an idea: how about abolishing the agriculture department and get rid of farm subsidies entirely. Yeah, I know...dream on. Farm states have members of Congress on both sides of the aisle that would never let that happen.
It's too bad....we could save $20 billion a year by cutting off the corporate welfare queens out on the prairie....and who know's, maybe put something else back into our pockets?
In my case?....I've been too long at paying into a system that dumbslurDemocratsdumbslur are intent on raising taxes just to save programs such as these mentioned simply to continue feeding big government. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Richard Haut
millennium club
Joined: 18 Apr 2004
Posts: 1097
Location: Nice, France
|
| Posted: Thu Feb 17, 2005 3:53 pm Post subject: |
|
|
if you and the other gops are such hardworking types, why do you all appear to be so dishonest ?
you recently said that Bush was demanding extra money from the American people to get the troops out of Iraq fast.
your other postings make it clear that that was not true.
you talk about costs to the American public, but a fraudulent war costing vast sums of money is not even mentioned - nor the attacks (based on wilful lies) that you now scream for which will cost many times as much.
your arguments are fake - all that you are really saying is that you and the gops want to take any money that you can get your hands on for any purpose that you like (including billions into their buddies pockets in Iraq).
Bush is swindling the American people in order to give profits to his buddies.
none of you have the slightest loyalty to nor interest in the people of america - none.
it is time for all americans to cut through this crap and to investigate who really profited from the massive market placements and other dealing before 9.11.
what sort of people are you ? read on:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1416370,00.html
_________________
Richard Haut has worked with the architectural profession for over 25 years and produces the weekly Richard Haut's Competitions, which has given architects details of many thousands of projects for which they can apply across Britain and Europe. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Donald
Joined: 16 Apr 2004
Posts: 493
|
| Posted: Thu Feb 17, 2005 4:50 pm Post subject: |
|
|
The Alpha-dork husband, the super-twerp wife, and the hyper-wonk vice president -- together with all their mega-weenie water carriers, such as vicious pit gerbil George Stephanopoulos and Eastern diamondback rattleworm Sidney Blumenthal spent eight years trying to make America nothing to brag about.
They failed.......yes RH, read on and consider your source: Sidney Blumenthal .... former senior adviser to President Clinton and author of The Clinton Wars. After reading his book you may well wonder just what universe Blumenthal inhabits. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Richard Haut
millennium club
Joined: 18 Apr 2004
Posts: 1097
Location: Nice, France
|
| Posted: Thu Feb 17, 2005 5:22 pm Post subject: |
|
|
free world, Donald - indeed it is, and if your President wants to use the services of a male prostitute, then what can I say ?
(perhaps he calls him Monica ?)
_________________
Richard Haut has worked with the architectural profession for over 25 years and produces the weekly Richard Haut's Competitions, which has given architects details of many thousands of projects for which they can apply across Britain and Europe. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Donald
Joined: 16 Apr 2004
Posts: 493
|
| Posted: Fri Feb 18, 2005 9:48 am Post subject: |
|
|
Back to the budget.........Lean? Tight? Austere? These are words being used to describe President Bush's budget, but George Will reminds us that it is nothing of the sort. $2.57 trillion is far from being a lean budget:
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/georgewill/gw20050217.shtml
What's the alternative SDR et al?..........stop spending on what it is we don't need |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Richard Haut
millennium club
Joined: 18 Apr 2004
Posts: 1097
Location: Nice, France
|
| Posted: Fri Feb 18, 2005 10:32 am Post subject: |
|
|
Donald
the details of your budget are your concern, but there is something that is causing quite a bit of confusion to myself and others around the world.
there is a lot of talk about America's social security/social services funds, and how they are to be privatized - right ?
what is baffling people is that America was always famous for not having a social security system of the type operated elsewhere.
as I understood it there were some extreme hardship funds, but basically if someone was out of work in the US, then they didn't eat. If they couldn't afford their rent, then they were on the street; and if they fell down in the street the payment or private insurance had better be there or the ambulance would refuse to pick them up.
have I got this wrong ? - and if not, what are the funds that are being privatized ?
_________________
Richard Haut has worked with the architectural profession for over 25 years and produces the weekly Richard Haut's Competitions, which has given architects details of many thousands of projects for which they can apply across Britain and Europe. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Donald
Joined: 16 Apr 2004
Posts: 493
|
| Posted: Fri Feb 18, 2005 11:26 am Post subject: |
|
|
The funds being privatized are an individuals Social Security taxes being paid, and heres your Peter Pan version of it:
You graduate from college. You begin your first real job. During the orientation process with your new employer someone steps in front of the group of new employees wearing a little smiley-face button with FICA printed on it. This person tells you that he is going to be in the payroll office every single payday, and before you get your paycheck he is going to take about 14% right off the top. That's 14 cents from every dollar you earn.**
Mr. FICA then tells you that the government might, though it is not obligated to do so, let you have some of that money back if you live long enough. If you die before the government starts paying you this money back the government will keep it. You cannot leave it to relatives or charities through your will. Mr. FICA also tells you that politicians are going to spend that money ... all of it ... as soon as they get their hands on it. If things get so bad that there isn't enough money coming in as FICA "contributions" to pay the people who managed to live long enough to get some back, they will simply pass a regulation saying that you have to be older still before you start getting checks.
You raise your hand to ask a question. "Why can't I put that money in some retirement account that I own and manage? After all, I did work for it. I did earn it."
Mr. FICA is very unhappy with you. What's your problem? Don't you know that there are politicians in Washington, both Democrat and Republican, who are sitting there waiting for that money? They need that money to spend on projects in their home districts so they can tell the voters what a great job they're doing! They need that money to make more and more people dependent on them and dependent on government for their lifestyles! How are these politicians going to get their hands on that money if they allow you to put it into an investment account that you own and control? You're young, you're idealistic. You'll learn.
Politicians are telling us that we just can't privatize our Social Security accounts because, they say, it would cost too much. Cost? How? You just heard it. That money that you earned sitting in your private investment account is money that the politicians can't spend to buy votes. You say that they should just cut spending? What are you, nuts? Cut spending? When have you ever known politicians to cut spending?
Here ... let me just give you another example. They recently had a bit of an audit of the nearly $600 million in homeland security funding in Texas. This is money given to the State of Texas to be spent on homeland security matters. The audit disclosed that homeland security funds were used by buy a trailer that was used to haul souped-up lawn mowers to lawn mower drag races. I guess these lawn mowers were going to be used to mow down the terrorists. A Dallas Morning News investigation found that some other homeland security funds were used in Texas to buy equipment for traffic stops, conduct drug investigations, and some of the money was even spent for community festivals, whatever they are.
Now if you were to propose that spending on homeland security in Texas be cut by an amount equal to that amount spent on festivals, drug investigations and trailers to haul drag-racing lawn mowers, there would be pure hell to pay. You would be accused of engaging in a partisan attempt to cripple our homeland security efforts just to enrich Wall Street brokers.
Oh yeah. The Wall Street brokers. These people are viewed, perhaps accurately, as rich. To the left that means that they're evil. If people are allowed to invest their own money that they worked for and earned into their own privately owned retirement accounts then they will turn to brokers to invest those funds in our capitalistic marketplace. Brokers generally charge for these services. The left can't stand this. How dare investment brokers make anything investing money that should be in the pockets of politicians being spent to buy votes.
The real pity here is not so much that politicians are fighting so hard to keep the flow of vote-buying funds strong, but that the people of this country, especially the younger people, are so complacent about it. How can you be optimistic about the future of our Republic when our population allows an atrocity like this to continue!
But .. what am I thinking? How can I realistically expect younger people to be paying attention to this wholesale thievery when Jenn and Brad just split!
Social Security is a disaster. If any corporation were run the way the federal government runs Social Security, it would be shut down and the corporate officers marched off to jail in handcuffs. We need real reform, not just nibbling around the edges
** Please don't show your ignorance by telling me that you're only paying a little over 7% and your employer "matches" your "contribution" with the same amount. Uttering those words only proves that you're just as stupid as the politicians believe you to be. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Richard Haut
millennium club
Joined: 18 Apr 2004
Posts: 1097
Location: Nice, France
|
| Posted: Fri Feb 18, 2005 3:18 pm Post subject: |
|
|
so, if I understood all that, these are a form of publicly-held pension fund.
not social security at all.
should it be private or held publicly ? Not my business, not my funds.
however, if it is to be changed to be private funds managed by the public, surely it would be easy enough to offer a form of secure government bond (for people to have a "safe" part of their fund) and to offer advice to members of the public who may be unfamiliar with the notion of long-term investment.
the difference, for example, here is that the range of social and welfare services is very broad - they require fairly high and complex payments and people generally will benefit from them in many ways (e.g. a visit to the dentist has to be paid for (except for the very hard up) but a proportion is returned). It is understood that public services and assistance to the needy are treated as an obligation which the better off are subsidizing for the less well off. The pensions at the end of it are not large, but they do exist. A system like this one could not be privatized without first dismantling the system itself. However in America (apart from the 'hand-over' period) the funds are meant as long-term investment for the individual's benefit in later life (right ?) so if they were changed to being privately handled, sure it is different - but is it so terrible ?
_________________
Richard Haut has worked with the architectural profession for over 25 years and produces the weekly Richard Haut's Competitions, which has given architects details of many thousands of projects for which they can apply across Britain and Europe. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Donald
Joined: 16 Apr 2004
Posts: 493
|
| Posted: Fri Feb 18, 2005 3:54 pm Post subject: |
|
|
The solution is privatization, and no its not so bad.
| Moderator wrote: | | This posting has been rescinded by the moderator because it was plagiarized. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
blogger
del.icio.us
digg
slashdot
